Alex George

THE PARIS HOURS

2020

In glittering 1927 Paris, Josephine Baker dances with Ernest Hemingway, Maurice Ravel plays a lonely piano, and Gertrude Stein hosts her legendary salons. Yet alongside these creative geniuses, a quartet of ordinary men and women are forging their own extraordinary stories. Since the death of her beloved employer, housemaid Camille has lived with a secret: when Marcel Proust asked her to burn his notebooks, she saved one for herself. Now it has disappeared, and she is desperate to recover it before her betrayal is revealed. Across town, lovesick painter Guillaume is also racing against the clock, with only a few more hours to repay a debt that threatens to bury him alive. Souren, an Armenian refugee, performs puppet shows for children, seeking connection in a city that has never felt like home. While Souren relentlessly relives his tragic past, journalist Jean-Paul is unable to confront his own, searching for his missing daughter in every stranger’s face. As the hours tick toward midnight, the City of Lights pulls these four characters ever closer, until their paths collide in an unforgettable climax. Symphonic and profound, The Paris Hours shows us that even the forgotten residents of Paris are as dazzling as the glorious city they inhabit.

SETTING FREE THE KITES

2017

“George’s effortless and beautiful prose flows off of the page to construct a timeless narrative of love, loss, kinship and how the connections we make will almost always find a way to affect us for the rest of our lives.” —Oxford Citizen

Setting Free the Kites tells the story of two teenagers, Robert Carter and Nathan Tilly, and the summers that mark turning points in their lives. The boys are unlikely friends: Robert is cautious, reticent, an observer; Nathan is curious, daring, and an eternal optimist. Yet when they meet on the first day of school in their coastal Maine town in 1976, they form a bond that both come to depend on. Their friendship is forged in the crucible of two family tragedies, and together the boys navigate paths away from heartbreak, finding comfort in unexpected places: the blistering crash of rock and roll records, the mysteries of a long-closed paper mill, and kites soaring high above a windswept beach. Nathan’s unflagging confidence is the catalyst for many of their adventures, but as the boys discover, too much hope can be a dangerous thing. When Robert and Nathan take summer jobs at the local rundown amusement park, they make their first forays into a less innocent world. Amid the dilapidated thrill rides and concession stands, they come to understand that all of us keep secrets from the ones we love. In the process, they uncover some unexpected truths about family, desire, and revenge–and, most of all, about themselves. Compelling, heart-breaking, and deeply human, Setting Free the Kites is a funny, moving drama that explores the pain and joy of childhood, and the glories of youthful friendship.

A GOOD AMERICAN

2013

“This lush, epic tale of one family’s journey from immigrants to good Americans had me alternately laughing and crying, but always riveted. It’s a rich, rare treat of a book, and Alex George is a first-rate talent.” —Sara Gruen

Set in a fictional Midwestern town and spanning more than a century, the novel tells the story of three generations of the Meisenheimer family. Beginning with an improbable love affair ignited by the power of song, the story follows an unorthodox young couple as they flee to America in search of a new life together. Their new home, Beatrice, Missouri, is filled with unforgettable characters: a jazz trumpeter from the Big Easy who cooks a mean gumbo, a teenage boy trapped in the body of a giant, a pretty schoolteacher who teaches more than just music, a minister who believes he has witnessed the second coming of Christ, and a malevolent, bicycle-riding dwarf. From bare-knuckle prizefighting and Prohibition to sweet barbershop harmonies and the Kennedy assassination, and beyond, the family is caught up in the sweep of history. Each new generation discovers afresh what it means to be an American, and in the process they sometimes finds out more about themselves than they had bargained for. Poignant, funny, and heartbreaking, A Good American is a novel about being an outsider – in your country, in your hometown, and sometimes in your own family. It is a universal story about the families we create and places we call home.