book review: The dressmaker

by Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck
Published by Henry Holt & Co.

A novel, set in Paris and a small town outside of Paris. A sweet novel, with an uncertain love story, and lots of descriptive sewing scenes. It is a story of a sad middle aged man who is changed by his infatuation with a beautiful and unnatainable woman. His life is altered by meeting her, he becomes obsessed and his behaviour and charactor changes quite dramatically.

While his unpredicatable behavour makes the story interesting it is the other charactors that flesh out the book. The distasteful wife, the insipid lover, the interesting but not often seen best friend and sister. The most interesting charactors had only a small spot, I wanted to know more of the nephew and his girlfriend whose story was really the climax of the book. The drawn out scenes of Claude sewing and designing clothes I thought were a bit over done, while descriptions of Paris and the surrounding towns, I thought could have done with a bit more fleshing out. A lovely story with a slightly mad and sad middle and uncertain ending.