Armand

Armand is a Parisian slice of life. Over the course of a day or so, the reader meets and follows the acutely sensitive title character, his wealthy lover and keeper Jeanne, his socially awkward and penniless old friend Lucien, and Lucien's younger sister Marguerite, who is as awkward and poor as her brother. First published in 1927, Armand accentuates Bove's talent for dramatic nuance and has been compared to the work of Marcel Proust. From noting the way Marguerite enters a room "without pushing the door too far open, because she must have been used to slipping in and out, " to interpreting the subtlety of every gesture, Bove manages to plumb the emotional depths of his characters through exacting observation of their finely textured surfaces.