Un couple

A man and a woman meet on a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens. They are both in their eighties, their faces marked with time. Children are playing in front of the pond where the boats are sailing, a ray of sunlight is piercing through the leaves. They have a sense of déjà vu. Is it an impression?

With force and talent, Eliette Abécassis retraces the love story between Alice and Jules to its beginning: step by step, in a reverse chronology, she reveals the subtleties, the dreams, the desires but also the regrets they’ve shared. In sober and moving writing, the author gives us a love story that is both ordinary and marvellous at the same time, and that lasts against all odds.

Aging, routine, reunions, detachment, jealousy, marriage, passion… But also a century of French history that unravels backwards in this dizzying journey: from the era of social networks to the fall of the Berlin Wall, May 68 and the Algerian War.

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