Pauline, a Paris shop girl, meets Armand, a retired philosophy professor, on the local bus. Armand has been a widower for the past three years, and feels misunderstood in his grief by his children. Pauline goes from one boyfriend to another, always hurt and disappointed. Fifty years separate them, and yet they share in a similar sense of solitude. A relationship between the two develops that is neither sexual nor platonic, but somewhere in between. Ultimately, they each transform the other’s life for the better, as they revolt jubilantly together against a society that acknowledges neither the needs of the elderly, nor those of the young. But each, in the end, must ultimately pay a price for this renewal and their brief interlude with sweetness.

This second novel by the acclaimed Françoise Dorner is a tender, heartfelt, nuanced and often humorous exploration of a most unlikely relationship.