The American Woman in the Chinese Hat: A Novel

"An intense, incantatory, erotic novel . . . An exquisitely calibrated evocation of longing and lust."--Vogue

Abandoned by her lover of ten years and devastated by the painful death of her brother, an American writer named Catherine comes to live and heal her wounds in the lush, crisp, light-dappled French Riviera. But the sensual magic of summertime only underscores Catherine's longing, as she falls deeper and deeper into an irretrievable madness. With passionate abandon and detachment, Catherine pursues her own destruction through brief but irresistible sexual encounters with an Arlesian woman, a fireman, a poet, and three thieves, until she meets Lucien, a man who looks as if he "stepped out of an unmade film by dead Truffant," and who she senses to be her match in solitude and beauty. Through this mysterious, doomed, bittersweet liaison Catherine makes one last attempt to halt her decline, only to face the shattering, inevitable conclusion of this mesmerizing drama of sex, betrayal, and dissolution.

Author Carole Maso's nuanced storytelling manipulates language with the graceful precision of a stained glass artisan--refracting reality, casting light, and dazzling with color the erotic adventures of a woman and the inner life of an artist inspired and doomed by desire.

"Gorgeous . . . an outpouring of passion."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Terse, musical and hypnotic . . . Maso tracks with horrifying authenticity the downward spiral of Catherine's depression."--Los Angeles Times

"A fever dream of love and sanctuary."--Elle

Carole Maso, the director of the Creative Writing Department at Brown University, is the author of four novels and a book-length erotic prose poem, all of which have received high critical acclaim. She was the recipient of the 1993 Lannan Literary Fellowship for fiction, as well as numerous other awards. Maso has been profiled in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Poets and Writers, The Village Voice, and others. She splits her time between New York and Providence, Rhode Island.