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Author: Gene Wilder
Narrator: Scott Brick
Publisher: Books on Tape
Edition: Unabridged
Duration: 3 hours, 48 minutes
Summary: (taken from Goodreads)
The beloved actor and screenwriter's first novel, set during World War I, delicately and elegantly explores a most unusual romance. It's almost the end of the war and Paul Peachy, a young railway employee and amateur actor in Milwaukee, realizes his marriage is one-sided. He enlists, and ships off to France. Peachy instantly realizes how out of his depth he is--and never more so than when he is captured. Risking everything, Peachy--who as a child of immigrants speaks German--makes the reckless decision to impersonate one of the enemy's most famous spies. As the urbane and accomplished spy Harry Stroller, Peachy has access to a world he could never have known existed--a world of sumptuous living, world-weary men, and available women. But when one of those women--Annie, a young, beautiful and wary courtesan--turns out to be more than she seems, Peachy's life is transformed forever.Overall Rating: 3/5
This book is set in World War I and it is told through the eyes of Paul Peachy, an American who left his wife and enlisted in the army. When captured by the Germans, he pretends to be Harry Stroller -- a German spy who let himself be captured by Peachy's regiment. Now, Peachy has to pretend to fit in with the German army, all the while handling his feelings for Annie.
My French Whore is interesting and enjoyable, but there's nothing in it that could make it amazing. It's a slow story and goes by rather quickly, so there isn't much time to get in depth with anything. Wilder does a great job in crafting the characters so quickly. They were all intriguing and had enough background and quirks to make them seem real. War time always makes for good stories, and this is a good story. It's entertaining to see Peachy pretend to be Stroller and to read how he gets out of tricky situations.
My main problem is that I didn't like Peachy very much. While he does an amazing job in pulling off his Harry Stroller act, he is a little stupid and naive. I have no idea why he loves Annie as much as he does; she doesn't seem all that great. A little more relationship development between the two of them would have fixed this, I think.
I really like that the ending is realistic. Peachy doesn't magically become a super spy, and he and Annie don't live happily ever after. I think war novels have to be a little bit more serious and tragic than other novels, and I'm glad this one didn't go the "everything is suddenly fixed" route. Peachy has some real problems and gets himself into a dangerous situation, and there is no easy way out of that.
As always, Brick is a great narrator. He does a good job for awkward, whiny guys, for some reason. He was able to make the story come alive, and he just fit for Peachy's character. There were also quite a few accents for this one, and he did them all perfectly. I usually get annoyed with people's French accents, but Brick's is excellent. If you're going to read this, definitely consider going for the audiobook.
