The Fires of Autumn

This panoramic exploration of French life between the wars reads like a prequel to Irène Némirovsky’s international bestseller Suite Française.   At the end of the First World War, Bernard Jacquelain returns from the trenches a changed man. Broken by the unspeakable horrors he has witnessed, he becomes addicted to the lure of wealth and success. He wallows in the corruption and excess of post-war Paris, but when his lover abandons him, Bernard turns to a childhood friend for comfort. For te