56 pages 1 hour read

Last Twilight in Paris

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2025

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Character Analysis

Louise Emmons Burns

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of illness, antisemitic violence, alcohol dependency, and death.


Louise is the novel’s dynamic protagonist. In her youth, she lives in London, estranged from her mother, who has an alcohol dependency. She is free to live according to her principles and to experience almost complete independence. Although she is dismayed by Joe’s choice to break off their relationship rather than marry her before he is sent to the Continent, his absence grants her even greater autonomy. After the war, however, they marry quickly and settle down, away from the hustle of the capital and the freedom and sense of purpose it represents in her life. Her postwar life causes her to wonder, “What can’t I be content with this life?” (19). 


Unable to ascertain the causes of her discontent in Oxfordshire, finding the necklace she recognizes from the war gives her a renewed sense of purpose. The necklace inspires her to travel, investigate, and use her intellect and compassion to learn the truth behind what happened to Franny, which in turn inadvertently uncovers Ian’s treason. The changes she feels in her life and herself due to her successful investigation of the necklace’s provenance allows her to identify her need to heal from blurred text
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