The Man in the Red Coat

“A pleasure to read in every way. Barnes writes with elegance and wit, probes motives with a novelist’s imagination but also a historian’s skepticism, plucking memorable formulations—enhanced by his own deft translation—from letters, journals and newspaper squibs . . . Barnes succeeds brilliantly.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[An] immersive plunge into the incredible flowering of sexual and artistic expression in Belle Epoque France . . . A wonderful demonstration [of] free-range intellectual curiosity . . . In part a biography of Samuel Jean Pozzi, a celebrated French gynecologist and Don Juan who is the red-robed subject of John Singer Sargent’s sumptuous full-length portrait, ‘Dr. Pozzi at Home,’ Barnes’ book expands into an erudite, entertaining, and beautifully illustrated disquisition on the period between 1870 and 1914, which actually bears some interesting parallels with our own times . . . [A] delightful, consummately open-minded book.” —NPR.org

“Not a pure biography or history, but an ever-widening gyre of the scandals, art, theory and fashions of the time . . . This new book—so contentedly diffuse — pulls into sharp focus.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

“Arguably the most versatile writer alive . . . [Barnes] has penned yet another truly innovative book that is like no other he has written before . . . [He] allows the concepts and fashions of the era to be defined by the written records of what people had said about them, presenting readers with the opportunities to observe through direct account, as though we are observing archival materials firsthand . . . Barnes’s writing, once again, is clear, erudite, and deeply insightful. [His] wit, intellect, and pleasant irony incite a lasting thrill in us.” —Los Angeles Review of Books