Choice of the Elect

Edmée seems to lack for nothing. Her adoring husband is a handsome engineer, the very image of the cosmopolitan European. She has two beautiful children. She lives in California. But all is not as it seems. Edmée has taken to sneaking pickles in the middle of the night. Her daughter Claudie shines with a rather disturbing inner knowledge. And her anxiety attacks can reduce her to tears at any moment, including her own birthday party.
Choice of the Elect follows Edmée through the seriocomic adventures that ensue when she deserts her husband. Though her act appears selfish, Edmée--with Claudie in tow--believes herself to be on a holy mission, and over the years she takes up with mysterious lovers and finds success in Hollywood as she continues her quest. Yet as time passes her devotion to Claudie is answered with rejection and Edmée, down and out in San Francisco, comes to wonder whether this is tragedy or just desserts, and whether the holy must pay a great price for being elect.
Though remembered today as a playwright (Ondine and Tiger at the Gates), it was Giraudoux's novels that earned praise from Gide, Proust, Colette, and Sartre. Choice of the Elect, Giraudoux's last novel, shows off his legendary wit and brilliant powers of observation, but also his light touch with serious matters.

Jean Giradoux (b. 1882) combined a career as an avant-garde novelist with work as a diplomat. Known for his Wildean wit-"Only the mediocre are always at their best"-Giradoux later won an international following as a playwright. His novels include Les Provinciales (1909), Suzanne and the Pacific (1921), and My Friend from Limousin (1922). He died in 1944, perhaps by poisoning, in Paris.

Henry Russell is a linguist, teacher, and translator of European and Latin American literature. He has taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a professor emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University.

"I am devoted to Giraudoux's writing in the way that some people are Gaullists or vegetarians." - Mavis Gallant, New York Times Book Review