Published By: Viking
Pages: 608
Released On: 15/10/2026
During a time of great turmoil, Gustave Flaubert created literature’s most scandalous heroine: Madame Bovary. He then poisoned her with arsenic. But what if, 175 years later, Emma – and the women history overlooked – could seize the quill from his hands and tell a different story?
In One Brief Moment All Eternity is a luminous reinvention of an iconic male writer, told through the eyes of the women – real and fictional – who shaped him: a devoted nursemaid, an Egyptian dancer and a passionate, jealous lover who refuses to be forgotten. Through their voices, visionary author Elif Shafak creates both an intimate portrait of a great artist and an epic meditation on storytelling itself: who gets remembered, who gets erased, and how can literature endure through political upheaval, war and injustice? When the world feels broken, how do we find the hope to carry on?
Shafak takes readers on an extraordinary journey through time and space, from Flaubert’s unusual childhood in a house that was part home, part hospital, part morgue, to nineteenth-century Paris during the Revolution, and onwards to Istanbul, Cairo, Palestine and Beirut. In this exhilarating tale, the questions at the heart of her work take on a thrilling new urgency: who gets to speak, and what would the silenced have said?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Viking for the gifted copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This is at least 200-250 pages longer than my ideal book length which does start it off on the back foot. But the fact that it’s an Elif book instantly gives it a gold star.
It is not an easy book to read, but it is an enjoyable one, a passionate and interesting book, well worth reading.
What a novel way of writing – Gustave’s life is told through a number of women he created and lived around. It shouldn’t work but it does. Which shouldn’t be surprising really as Elif’s book are never straight forward but always work.
It takes a special author who can make long passages of description or world building feel exciting instead of dragged out and she’s done that.
For a book over 600 pages, nothing really happens, and yet everything happens. It’s thin on actual plot but the characters we follow are marvellously written and become a part of the plot itself.
I don’t know how much of Gustave’s background is true and how much is artistic license, but it all feels so real, so tangible. And it’s made me want to dig out my copy of Madame Bovary.
It sort of reads like an embellished memoir of the author, but with the twist of having his life narrated on by women that gives it that artistic edge.
I love that Gustave is only ever seen in the third person whilst the women are in first person. Which in a story set in 1800s is quite unusual as women were almost invisible. But Gustave is the one being carefully observed by women at all moments in his life, even from his imagination.
I may not have read Madame Bovary before but I am aware of its story. I do wonder if I’d get more out of this if I ad rea it, if I’d understand more about the characters and personality of Gustave.
I mean, I’m going to be honest, it is too long for me. I enjoyed what was there and it was beautifully written, but I can’t help but wonder if it could have been cut down slightly and still maintain its power. The issue is, what do you cut? It follows 30 women, and I can’t pick a single one that is worthy of being cut, and yet I still needed it to be shorter. It’s a creative conundrum.
I find it difficult to review an Elif Shafak book, to truly convey the emotions that her words bring out. So, now I have finished I will definitely suggest you read it yourself. Every reader will find something different in it and only you can figure out what that is and what it means to you.
