After graduating from the Sorbonne, Lapierre studied at the American Film Institute and then enrolled at the University of Southern California, where she learned storytelling. Both witty and poignant, this novel brings to life a character who might be seen in his suit and tie strolling the streets of Manhattan any day, right alongside the Hogarthian figures of our modern underworld.Alexandra Lapierre is a French author of novels, biographies, and short stories.Īlexandra Lapierre is the daughter of the French writer and philanthropist Dominique Lapierre. His hero Schmidt is a wonderfully flawed character who belongs to a world of privilege threatened by the rapid changes of modern life.

It isn't historical fiction, but Begley has an elegiac voice that can make even contemporary settings seem part of the distant past. Louis Begley's 'Schmidt Delivered' (Knopf, 272 pages, $25) deserves special mention this month.

But her narrative of life in a small Wisconsin community allows her to create a perfect miniature of an almost vanished part of America. Mona Simpson is a fine novelist with an excellent ear for dialogue and description that can serve her well in any setting. Mona Simpson's 'Off Keck Road' (Knopf,144 pages, $19) is not set against any major historical events, but it so deftly captures the mood and look of the 1950s that it seems almost a document from another age.

Artemisia lapierre