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Coco at the Ritz

A Novel

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Coco at the Ritz

By: Gioia Diliberto
Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
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About this listen

Though her name is synonymous with elegance and chic, the iconic Coco Chanel had a complicated dark side, and in late August 1944, as World War II drew to a close, she was arrested and interrogated on charges of treason to France.

Many of the facts are lost to history, partly through Chanel’s own obfuscation, but this much is known: The charges grew out of her wartime romance with a German spy, and one morning two soldiers from the French Forces of the Interior - the loose band of Resistance fighters, soldiers, and private citizens who took up arms in the wake of the Liberation of Paris - led Chanel from her suite at the Ritz Hotel in Paris to an undisclosed location for questioning.

What transpired during her interrogation, who was present, and why she was set free when so many other women who’d been involved with German men (willingly or otherwise) had their heads shaved or were imprisoned remains a mystery.

In this brilliantly insightful and compulsively enjoyable novel from the author of I Am Madame X, Gioia Diliberto explores the motivations of this complex woman and portrays the gripping battle of wits that could have been her interrogation. Was Chanel truly a collaborator?

Though the Occupation of France offered a stark contrast between good and evil, few people are wholly heroes or villains in wartime. Most citizens, as the writer André Gide noted, were like old shoes floating in murky waters: battered and torn, riding the turbulent flow, just trying to survive.

By turns raw and vulnerable, steely and flawed, Chanel emerges from this book as a woman who owns her decisions, no matter the consequences. Rich with history and filled with emotional truths, Coco at the Ritz is a story about the choices one woman made when the stakes were the highest. In today’s world, it is a cautionary tale about the necessity of standing against evil when it’s staring you in the face.

©2021 Gioia Diliberto (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing
Biographical Fiction World War II Fiction France Solider

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10 out of 10

They could not found a beter narrator for this book....amazing story....good not put it down...

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So interesting!

Really enjoyed hearing more about a part of Coco’s life that is not widely known. I liked understanding how the perfume got introduced in the United States and the different meaning the scent held for them compared to those in France. It has made me think differently about the brand now too!

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Very enjoyable

As mentioned at the end, likely not entirely 100% historically accurate because of the lack of documentation surrounding her life during the war era, but very enjoyable and well narrated story.

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Mysterious Coco

Gioio Diliberto has unveiled a hidden, little explored time in the life of a luminary in an intriguing & plausible imagining of the mysteries of Coco Chanel. The story was compelling & very well informed, evoking characters, events, art, war, mores & fashion in a whole internal and exterior world inhabited by Chanel. A joy to listen to.

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