SOURCE: Review of Shipwreck, by Louis Begley. Kirkus Reviews 71, no. 16 (15 August 2003): 1030.

In the following review, the critic argues that the narrative in Shipwreck is both “rambling” and “overworked to the point of caricature.”

[Shipwreck is a] precious account of an American writer's love affair with a young Frenchwoman.

John North is someone who has pretty much achieved everything he could hope for in life. Happily married to a renowned New York physician, John is a well-regarded novelist with plenty of money, an extensive circle of friends (in America and abroad), a nice apartment in Manhattan, and a weekend house in East Hampton. He's sophisticated, respected, and serious—in other words, a stuffed shirt. And he knows it, too. In Paris to promote the French translation of one of his books, John is so overwhelmed by the burden of his persona that he accosts a perfect stranger in a...