The girl from the Chartreuse - Pierre Péju

The owner of the bookshop "The Verb To Be" is a man obsessed by books, both as a collector and a reader. Étienne Vollard is trapped in a giant body and in his solitude. Éva is a pale and thin little girl who has just moved to a new home near Grenoble and who feels lonelier than ever. Her mother, Thérèse, is a struggling single parent who lacks maternal instincts and whose dream is to be far away, alone. One wet afternoon, Vollard, driving a vanload of new and second-hand books, knocks down and seriously injures Éva.

Haunted by guilt, he regularly visits her in hospital for as long as she is in a coma and recites stories and poetry to her. Meanwhile, Thérèse, more than ever unable to communicate with her daughter, comes less and less often to see her child. When Éva eventually awakes, the three of them are immediately aware that their lives are forever altered.

Pierre Péju’s profound and moving novel is about life, childhood, loneliness and learning to accept and understand our differences.