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Eleven voices, eleven characters recount the end of a love story.
How did it happen? Irritation, indifferent kisses, conflicts, romances that are failures from the start: all in all, the couple is unveiled, without the prop of fiction.
This is a depiction of the couple ripped apart and in pain, when you cannot stand each other anymore; when you have stopped dreaming together; when you are about to break-up. You start explaining the situation to the children. Or you think you can catch up the lost time and you shut your mouth to avoid creating irreversible damages.
The end of love is also the disappearance of the loved one, the person you talk to in the dark and without whom you loose your sense of place.
These are familiar stories, where we find again the small bargains, the disillusions, as well as the violence that one experiences in such situations. These are tales of ordinary lives, from women and men as they launch into the old adventure of love. Sparse and intense, in the vein of Brigitte Giraud’s celebrated style, this radical and deeply affecting book testifies to the author’s unique ability to convey the fragility of beings, and offers a lucid and critical account of life as a couple.

Brigitte Giraud was born in Algeria in 1960. She has worked as a journalist as well as a book keeper. She is programming director of the Festival of Bron, an important literary event taking place in the region of Lyon where she now resides. She has written four novels, La Chambre des parents (Fayard, 1997), Nico (Stock, 1999), Marée noire (Stock, 2004), J’apprends (Stock, 2005), and a novella, À présent (Stock, 2001).