The Man in the Red Coat
 First edition | |
| Author | Julian Barnes |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | 11 November 2019 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| ISBN | 9781787332164 |
The Man In The Red Coat is a novel by Julian Barnes. It will be published on 11 November 2019.[1]
Plot
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days’ shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner with an Italian name, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent’s greatest portraits. The commoner was Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and free-thinker – a rational and scientific man with a famously complicated private life.
Pozzi's life played out against the backdrop of the Parisian Belle Epoque. The beautiful age of glamour and pleasure more often showed its ugly side: hysterical, narcissistic, decadent and violent, a time of rampant prejudice and blood-and-soil nativism, with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine.