Books That Will Delight Mum This (French) Mother’s Day
This Mother’s Day, what about we honor the mothers, grandmothers, and mother figures who raised us on stories—with stories? These four engrossing novels—each tender, thought-provoking, and impossible to put down—offer unforgettable portraits of love in its many forms: romantic, maternal, delusional, redemptive. Whether they prefer political drama, bittersweet nostalgia, or emotional coming-of-age, these are books that stay with you.
Reading List
Power, ambition, and emotional sabotage are the weapons of choice in Karine Tuil’s gripping political drama. A disgraced former French president spirals into addiction while his estranged wife reclaims the spotlight in a film adapted from a novel by his ex. Told through the shifting perspectives of five sharply drawn characters, this is a novel of public roles and private implosions—brilliantly written and utterly engrossing.
Here’s an age-old refrain: a man meets a woman after a screening of Leo McCarey’s masterpiece, An Affair to Remember They already know the story that awaits them, having lived it through their own fiction. And yet…
La Face Nord is a delightful, sentimental exploration of the border between fiction and reality. Jean-Pierre Montal pulls off this balancing act with an elegance that would make Cary Grant envious!
La Face Nord by Jean-Pierre Montal, éditions Séguier
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Le Havre in the 1980s, Anne is 16 and lives with her sister Irène, mother Maud and authoritarian, eccentric stepfather Jacques. Jacques may be sickly attached to good manners, wearing three-piece suits for every occasion and always expressing himself in a very chastened way, but he is nonetheless a spoiled stepfather. He envelops the girls in unconditional love and lavishes them with princely gifts far beyond his means. An improvising businessman in Abidjan, Jacques is sure his luck will change and success awaits him around the corner.
With a gentle melancholy, Florence Seyvos recreates the atmosphere of the 80s with the character of a man as flamboyant as he is eccentric, straight out of a Philippe de Broca film. This story of two teenage girls who discover the extreme vulnerability of adults has the colors of old Polaroids, both tender and heartbreaking.
Un Perdant magnifique by Florence Seyvos, éditions de l’Olivier
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In language that soars with power and beauty, Adichie charts the lives of four Nigerian women as they navigate friendship, motherhood, and the contradictions of love in a shifting world. Here’s a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself.
Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, L’Inventaire des rêves pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart.
L’Inventaire des rêves by Chimamanda Ngochie Adichie, translated from the English (Nigeria) by Blandine Longre, éditions Gallimard
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