A Couple

Told in reverse chronology, this novel follows Alice and Jules, who are eighty-five years old. They meet on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. Children are playing by the pool, a ray of sunshine breaks through the leaves of the trees. Is it déjà vu? Because what they now risk forgetting, and what began sixty years ago, started here: their life together. Step by step, from the end to the beginning. Age, routine, affairs, jealousy, becoming parents, marriage, passion: the two of them experienced all of this against the backdrop of Paris and the major historical upheavals of the last decades. This hopeful and tender book asks how love can endure and what holds us together.

Eliette Abécassis is a French writer and philosopher of Moroccan-Jewish descent, born in France. She also writes for the theater, the movies, and French songs. She regularly appears on television, on the radio, and collaborates with newspapers such as the Huffington Post, Elle, and Le Figaro.