FIRST FRIDAY BOOK CLUB | The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes

Join The Friends for another fascinating and interesting morning of lively discussion.

Witty, surprising and deeply researched, The Man in the Red Coat takes us on a tour of Belle Epoque Paris, via the life story of the pioneering surgeon Samuel Pozzi.

It is at once, a fresh and original portrait of the Belle Époque; an illuminating look at the longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France; and a life of a man who lived passionately in the moment but whose ideas and achievements were far ahead of his time.

Man Booker prize winning author Julian Barnes sets his new book in 1885 at the time of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Three Frenchmen arrive in London for a few day’s intellectual shopping. One of them is Samuel Pozzi, society doctor and free thinker, with a complicated personal life, who was subject of one of John Singer Sargeant’s greatest portraits.   In an era of glamour and pleasure such famous names as Henry James, Sarah Bernhardt, Marcel Proust appear as Barnes reveals a fascinating portrait of the Belle Epoque, the exchange of ideas and the story of a pioneering surgeon.

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