In the salt-scented streets of Aigues-Mortes, a roguish Frenchman named Aristide Pujol accidentally hurls himself into a parked car and directly into trouble with an angry crowd. Just before the situation turns violent, a charismatic stranger materializes and diffuses everything with theatrical brilliance. Thus begins a串连 of adventures that carries this irrepressible Frenchman from the marshlands of southern France to the tea rooms of England, from one improbable romantic entanglement (including a rather surprising bride named Mme. Gougasse) to another, always landing on his feet through sheer audacity. These linked short stories capture the effervescent spirit of Edwardian Britain, when readers wanted their fiction warm, witty, and threaded with the assurance that charm and cleverness could conquer any scrape. Aristide is neither heroic nor particularly responsible, but he is absolutely irresistible. He schemes, he fibs, he falls in love repeatedly, and somehow he always emerges victorious. For readers who want fiction that feels like a glass of champagne in literary form.
