The Counterfeiters by André Gide. Translated by Dorothy Bussy.

 André Gide kept a journal while writing The Counterfeiters. In it, he quotes from a newspaper clipping about the trial of a gang of counterfeiters:

When the judge asked Fréchaut if he had been a member of the Luxembourg "gang":

    "Let's call it 'the coterie,' your honor," he replied warmly. "It was a gathering where we dealt in counterfeit money, I don't deny that; but we were principally concerned with questions of politics and literature."

It is clear that Gide had Fréchaut's description in mind when he composed his novel. It is, indeed, about counterfeiting ("I don't deny that") but it is about many other things as well. 

The novel is usually classed as "modernist." The primary reasons for that would seem to be the many plots and stories, some of which remain unresolved, that crisscross through its pages (including a novel within the The Counterfeiters called, of course, "The Counterfeiters," and also its attitude toward the conventions of the society of the time. Homosexuality, pederasty, and adultery are all prominent, and usually practiced by people who are, on the surface, "respectable." In the same vein, the greatest worry about the boys who are involved in counterfeiting is that some of the are from prominent families. It would be an embarrassment if their involvement became public knowledge, and it is clear that, thanks to the prominence of their families, it won't.

The novel is a pleasure to read, though, not just for its modernist experimentation, but also for the traditional pleasures novels by Balzac and Dickens, for example, provide. The characters are compelling, the plot(s) are lively, and the prose, in Dorothy Bussy's translation, though never flashy, reads well. This is what The Counterfeiters shares with other great modernist novels: the experimentation never detracts from the novel's readability; it enhances it.