Book Description
This observant and insightful novel reveals, in rich and poignant detail, the interior lives of three generations of people in their quest for love and beauty Louise, not content with her husband's gentle affection, strives to reclaim her youth in titillating social and spiritual adventures. Her daughter Marietta searches for beauty in lofty ideas and in her obsession for her son Mark, who believes love is to be found in the pursuit of money and young, vacuous lovers. And Leo, their eccentric, self-styled guru, satisfies himself with power-commanding the bodies and souls of his followers. Demonstrating Jhabvala's deft twists of irony and humor, In Search of Love and Beauty brings several lifespans, full of hopes and ideals, within our grasp.


About the Author
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is the author of twelve novels. Her short fiction has regularly appeared in The New Yorker, and her story collections include East into Upper East and the critically acclaimed Out of India. She is a MacArthur Fellow and has been honored with an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Jhabvala's screenplays for Merchant-Ivory Productions have earned two Academy Awards. She recently completed a screen adaptation of Henry James's The Golden Bowl. Jhabvala and her husband divide their time between Delhi and New York.

FROM THE CRITICS

Robert Towers

Page by page, ''In Search of Love and Beauty'' provides an abundance of small, sharp pleasures. Mrs. Jhabvala renders a little world of emotional, greedy refugees with much shrewdness of insight and with expertly chosen detail. . . . Entertained and slightly repulsed, one watches from a safe distance as Mrs. Jhabvala's damaged creatures dance around the ludicrous monster of egotism in their midst. -- New York Times

NY Times Book Review

...[A] macabre comedy of impulsive, thwarted lives....Jhabvala renders a little world of emotional, greedy refugees with much shrewdness and insight.

NY Times Book Review