The Man Who Slept with the Mona Lisa: A Historical Novel Based On Memory

Tinker, tailor, soldier, scholar, spy. Who could have imagined that the young man with modest beginnings who had grown up in a farming village in the Loire valley, was made destitute by the Great Depression, went on to serve in the Foreign Legion, was educated and taught at the Louvre, captured after Dunkirk by the Wehrmacht during the German invasion of France, escaped and found his way to Valençay where he was charged with safeguarding in his bedroom Leonardo’s immortal Mona Lisa from destruction by the Nazis, then joined the Resistance and finally would become Curator-in-Charge of one of the world’s most significant monuments, the fabulous Chateau de Versailles? Roberta Downs’ gripping story of Gerald Van der Kemp takes the reader from the moment she was in Paris at a grand celebration at Versailles backward to the earliest days of her stepfather’s life, then forward to his death in 2001 and to the rescue of Claude Monet’s house and gardens at Giverny. She speaks both in her voice and that of her stepfather, but also in the voice of the Mona Lisa, as if Leonardo’s subject were alive and in the same room. Born in Washington, D.C., Roberta Downs was educated at private schools and Bryn Mawr College. She has lived in Mexico City, Paris, London, Hong Kong, and New York City. The Man Who Slept with the Mona Lisa is her first novel. A second book, based on the so-called 1973 Battle of Versailles, which brought American fashion design onto the world stage, is in process.
ASIN: B0F92V43VQ
VSKU: DBV.B0F92V43VQ.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Downs, Roberta
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: Gently used with minimal wear on the corners and cover. A few pages may contain light highlighting or writing, but the text remains fully legible. Dust jacket may be missing, and supplemental materials like CDs or codes may not be included. May be ex-library with library markings. Ships promptly!