Heureuse, ou presque is a collection of short stories. Some describe brief scenes of daily life, others unravel over several days or months. Each focuses on a woman, a mother, a daughter or a sister, confronted to fragile and testing moments of their existence (being a twin, marriage, maternity and giving birth).
Through these portraits, both moving and funny, Isabelle Lortholary offers a complex exploration of femininity. How does one become a woman, and what kind of a woman does one become?
The testimonies of all these women, courageous, confused, in love, weave together a tapestry of feminine voices that ultimately form but one thread, one message: almost happy.
Isabelle Lortholary was born in 1967 and lives in Paris. She is a journalist and literary critic at the magazine Elle. Heureuse, ou presque is her first book.