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'This is the story of two flawed eccentrics. Everything they do subverts their firm intention of keeping up appearances. They meet just after the war in liberated Paris but they cannot quite free themselves from the many strings attached to them - the old aunts, the sisters, the cousins, the nuns and the ominous concierges who dog their footsteps. Alexandre is a banker and a Resistant and lives in a world of numbers and Roman emperors. Poum resides in the Odyssey and in her bed, hiding from the mysterious disapproval of their relatives, for they both seem to persist in some irreparable faux pas which has them wading through a lifetime pickle. Their daughter, Catherine, would like to help but she seems to be part of the problem.
'This is no ordinary childhood, and Catherine de Saint Phalle's acceptance of her parents, despite their flaws, shines through, propelling us head first into their strange, yet beautiful, Parisian world.
'Poum and Alexandre is a searingly honest, humorous and moving elegy to family and place, and a meditation on the ways they ultimately define us.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Catherine de Saint Phalle on Poum and Alexandre
2018
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Stella Interviews 2018;'Catherine de Saint Phalle is shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize for her memoir of her parents, Poum and Alexandre. In this special Stella interview, Catherine discusses shifting from writing fiction to nonfiction, being mentored by books, and the differences (and similarities) between French and Australian literary culture.' (Introduction)
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The Discreet Charm of the Aristocracy
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 11 March 2017; (p. 19) 'Imagine growing up among the French aristocracy with eccentric parents, romantically involved in an endless pas de deux, who in everyday talk, as though it’s a matter of immediate concern, revisit the Versailles of Louis XVI, the Greece of Odysseus, the Rome of the ancient emperors, the Carthaginians and the French Resistance during Word War II.' (Introduction) -
Unflinching, Luminous, and Moving, the Stella Shortlist Will Get under Your Skin
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 18 April 2017;'There are certain books that have the knack of getting under your skin. This is why George Bernard Shaw declared Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit to be a far more “seditious” text than Karl Marx’s Das Capital.
'What he was getting at is the power of books to work on your emotions. The intellect can be too cold an instrument to engender empathy, to bring people who are distant from you into your “circle of concern”. And it is precisely this, as philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues, that matters for the pursuit of social justice.
'In 2017, the Stella Prize judges have again come up with a shortlist of books that will engage your brain, but also your heart. They illuminate all the aspects of life that make us frail and vulnerable – sickness, dying, inequality – realities that many of us would prefer to ignore.' (Introduction)
-
Unflinching, Luminous, and Moving, the Stella Shortlist Will Get under Your Skin
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 18 April 2017;'There are certain books that have the knack of getting under your skin. This is why George Bernard Shaw declared Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit to be a far more “seditious” text than Karl Marx’s Das Capital.
'What he was getting at is the power of books to work on your emotions. The intellect can be too cold an instrument to engender empathy, to bring people who are distant from you into your “circle of concern”. And it is precisely this, as philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues, that matters for the pursuit of social justice.
'In 2017, the Stella Prize judges have again come up with a shortlist of books that will engage your brain, but also your heart. They illuminate all the aspects of life that make us frail and vulnerable – sickness, dying, inequality – realities that many of us would prefer to ignore.' (Introduction)
-
The Discreet Charm of the Aristocracy
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 11 March 2017; (p. 19) 'Imagine growing up among the French aristocracy with eccentric parents, romantically involved in an endless pas de deux, who in everyday talk, as though it’s a matter of immediate concern, revisit the Versailles of Louis XVI, the Greece of Odysseus, the Rome of the ancient emperors, the Carthaginians and the French Resistance during Word War II.' (Introduction) -
Catherine de Saint Phalle on Poum and Alexandre
2018
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Stella Interviews 2018;'Catherine de Saint Phalle is shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize for her memoir of her parents, Poum and Alexandre. In this special Stella interview, Catherine discusses shifting from writing fiction to nonfiction, being mentored by books, and the differences (and similarities) between French and Australian literary culture.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2017 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year
- 2017 shortlisted The Stella Prize