A Good Life
A Good Life
A Good Life
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Description
Description
Full of humor and compassion, a profound exploration of sisterhood, healing, and the ineffable beauty of life from France's most beloved contemporary novelist
Laughter, tears, the transformative power of love, unexpected revelations, and striking natural beauty: these are the ingredients that combine to make best-selling author Virginie Grimaldi's American debut the feel-good read of 2024. Grimaldi is among France's top ten contemporary authors and her uplifting, unputdownable literary novels have quickly garnered her millions of adoring fans. This, her American debut, is among her most delicately wrought and emotionally compelling novels to date.
Emma and Agathe are sisters. They were thick as thieves when they were young but have always been as different as can be. Agathe, the younger sister, is disorderly, chaotic, and fiery. Five years older, Emma has always been the more mature sister, the defender, the protector, the worrier. Their relationship as adults is scarred by a tragedy that transformed their happy, ordinary childhoods into something much more complex and challenging. For a long time, Emma hasn't wanted to be involved in Agathe's life. But then they must return together to the Basque Country, to the house of their adored grandmother, to empty out her home and in the process to reconcile, to remember, and to pour out what is in their hearts.
The story alternates between Agathe and Emma's childhood and their present day, with everything in between, and readers see them as young girls, teenagers, young women, mothers, wives, partners, individuals, sisters. This is a story that encompasses whole lives, complex lives, women's lives, asking all the while how the scars of the past can be healed and what, in the end, is a good life.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"Grimaldi is a best-selling author in France, and her bittersweet English-language debut is sure to tug at the heartstrings of readers who appreciate moving novels which explore the complexities of sisterly love and mental illness, such as All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (2014), or Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee (2018)." --Booklist
"[Grimaldi] sees life as an extended dialogue of sorts, with others and with ourselves. She isn't too concerned about right and wrong, seeing both terms as limiting and beside the point...In Grimaldi's universe, it seems to be about the difficulties and messiness of love and what we must be willing to do to keep it forever." --World Literature Today
"As the sisters tentatively attempt to reconnect, their fractured pasts are slowly revealed in ways that are both sweet and heartbreaking, the story deftly explores all aspects of their lives, from the scars of their girlhoods to the challenges of motherhood, and everything in between."--Paste Magazine
"Virginie Grimaldi delivers her most accomplished, strongest novel. Her best."--Le Parisien
"Grimaldi's concise prose, translated by Hildegarde Serle, is striking and vivid, painting a sympathetic portrait of the enduring bond of sisterhood. Readers will fall under the spell of a compassionately revealed story that blends poignancy and humor in depicting the transcendental nature of familial love and forgiveness."--Shelf Awareness
"Chapters rock back and forth like the waves of the ocean...Lovers of Europa Editions' other titles My Brilliant Friend and Fresh Water for Flowers will fall hard for this beautiful, heartbreaking, and healing story. Grab a box of tissues!"--Electric Lit
"Refined, sensitive, and full of humor, as always with Virginie Grimaldi."--Cosmopolitan (France)
"Despite the many dark themes explored in this novel, A Good Life is ultimately quite joyous . . . It is, in the end, a novel in which its universally relatable plot and vibrant characters are perfectly rendered in deceptively simple prose, and I am sure that readers will love every single word." --Ashley Riggleson, FXBG Advance
"An explosion of emotions."--Paris Normandie
"The idyllic Basque setting sits in contrast to the sisters' recalled heartaches but serves as a balm to their sentimental souls as they recall the nurturing affection Mima provided. Translated from French by Serle, Grimaldi's account of two sisters taking stock of what's brought them this far is affecting but smile producing as well."--Kirkus Reviews
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
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