Choice of the Elect

The quest of a French mother who abandons her perfect family to seek mysterious affairs and mystical forces; Edmee seems to lack for nothing. Her adoring husband is a handsome engineer and the very image of the cosmopolitan European. She has two beautiful children and she lives in California. But all is not as it seems. Edmee has taken to sneaking pickles in the middle of the night. Her daughter Claudie shines with a rather disturbing inner knowledge. And Edmee’s anxiety attacks can reduce her to tears at any moment. Choice of the Elect follows Edmee through the serio-comic adventures that ensue when she deserts her husband. Though her act appears selfish, Edmee - with Claudie in tow - believes herself to be on a holy mission, and over the years she takes up with mysterious lovers and finds success in Hollywood as she continues her quest. Yet as time passes, her devotion to Claudie is answered with rejection. Edmee is now living down and out in San Francisco and having taken to opium she comes to wonder whether this is tragedy or just desserts, and whether those who are holy must pay for being elect. Though he is remembered today as a playwright (The Madwoman of Chaillot, Ondine, and Tiger at the Gates), it was Giraudoux’s novels that earned praise from such authors as Gide, Proust and Colette. Choice of the Elect, Giraudoux’s last novel, shows off his brilliant wit, deep insight into human nature, and his remarkable blend of the serious and the comic.