Constance

Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Jacket: No dust jacket - paperback. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.

A sweeping work of literary fiction, Constance is the second volume in Lawrence Durrell's celebrated quintet, The Avignon Quintet, set against the brooding backdrop of wartime Europe and the ancient city of Avignon. The novel chronicles the life of Constance, a brilliant Swiss psychoanalyst, as she returns to occupied France during World War II, navigating the treacherous moral and emotional landscapes of love, loss, and human psychology. Durrell writes with the lush, poetic intensity for which he is renowned, weaving together the inner lives of a cast of richly drawn characters — diplomats, artists, and refugees — against a continent in crisis. Suffused with Freudian undertones and metaphysical ambition, the narrative argues that civilization itself is both fragile and enduring, as capable of catastrophic collapse as it is of quiet, personal redemption. Praised by the *London Review of Books* as superbly accomplished, this is a novel of profound intellectual depth and emotional resonance.