Bastei Lübbe
Hardcover, 287 pages
First Release: 04/07/2012
ISBN: 978-3-431-03682-4
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Caroline Vermalle
When Life dropped by to pay a surprise Visit
Novel
A new beginning – but where begin, if you are 73 years old?
WHEN LIFE DROPPED BY TO PAY A SURPRISE VISIT is a book that is filled with an infectious zest for life, the power of imagination, and fine and delicate observations. A generous story with a positive outlook. Feelings of inadequateness and little anxieties, big fears and the inability to grab happiness by the horns are handled with love and care – happiness is not a question of age. With verbal wit, vivid dialogues, multi-faceted characters, and an imaginative atmosphere, Caroline Vermalle manages to tell a thoroughly dramatic story, which leaves the reader with a light heart and a smiling face.
Jacqueline Le Gall, a frail elderly lady, who is mousy and shy, arrives in the Ile d’Yeu, an island off the French Atlantic coast. After 50 years of marriage, she has left her husband, Marcel, and is visiting her cousin, Nane, whom she has not seen in the same amount of time.
80-year-old Nane, the widow of a famous painter and an artist herself, a sculptress, is the opposite of her cousin: vibrant, buoyant, and gifted with a quick and sharp tongue. She handles Jacqueline’s sudden and unexpected presence as if it were the most natural thing in the world offering her to stay in the little garden house to heal and find herself again. Jacqueline accepts the offer but feels out of place, at least in the beginning. Nane and her housekeeper, Arminda, are preparing lavish dinners for legions of eccentric guests.
While she is not saying a single word during the dinners where the others celebrate the joie de vivre, Jacqueline’s husband Marcel decides to win his wife back like a hero: Despite his 76 years of age, he wants to swim through the river Loire from its sources to the point where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean – right at the Ile d’Yeu.
French Manuscript and English summary available!
French Manuscript and English summary available!
WHEN LIFE DROPPED BY TO PAY A SURPRISE VISIT is a book that is filled with an infectious zest for life, the power of imagination, and fine and delicate observations. A generous story with a positive outlook. Feelings of inadequateness and little anxieties, big fears and the inability to grab happiness by the horns are handled with love and care – happiness is not a question of age. With verbal wit, vivid dialogues, multi-faceted characters, and an imaginative atmosphere, Caroline Vermalle manages to tell a thoroughly dramatic story, which leaves the reader with a light heart and a smiling face.
Jacqueline Le Gall, a frail elderly lady, who is mousy and shy, arrives in the Ile d’Yeu, an island off the French Atlantic coast. After 50 years of marriage, she has left her husband, Marcel, and is visiting her cousin, Nane, whom she has not seen in the same amount of time.
80-year-old Nane, the widow of a famous painter and an artist herself, a sculptress, is the opposite of her cousin: vibrant, buoyant, and gifted with a quick and sharp tongue. She handles Jacqueline’s sudden and unexpected presence as if it were the most natural thing in the world offering her to stay in the little garden house to heal and find herself again. Jacqueline accepts the offer but feels out of place, at least in the beginning. Nane and her housekeeper, Arminda, are preparing lavish dinners for legions of eccentric guests.
While she is not saying a single word during the dinners where the others celebrate the joie de vivre, Jacqueline’s husband Marcel decides to win his wife back like a hero: Despite his 76 years of age, he wants to swim through the river Loire from its sources to the point where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean – right at the Ile d’Yeu.
French Manuscript and English summary available!
French Manuscript and English summary available!
