Description
Listed on Financial Times Best Summer Books of 2022
A woman addresses letters to an absent loved one while in the apartment opposite hers, a mysterious female figure keeps on appearing under a landscape painter’s brush. Directing her reader and characters with a deftness reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Lucie Paye dramatizes the power of unconditional love and the role of the unconscious in artistic creation. From Paris to Naples, Mauritius and London Absence traces a poignant search for redemption and truth, among the lies that destroy lives.
‘A mysterious female figure keeps on appearing under a landscape painter’s brush. A woman addresses letters to an absent loved one. Directing her reader and characters with the deftness of the Master of Suspense, Lucie Paye dramatises the power of unconditional love and the role of the unconscious in artistic creation.’In this remarkable debut, the story of a painter fixated with a ghostly female figure becomes entwined with the story of a woman seeking to connect with a long-lost son. A delicate tale of artistic obsession and creation, and a moving meditation on longing and loss.’ – Financial Times
‘Enigmatic and magnetic? Its oscillations are at first intriguing, then captivating, and finally mesmerising.’ – Le Matricule des Anges
‘In this romantic epic, Lucie Paye choreographs a ballet of clues in a world where people take time – to write letters, to linger in a museum, to be absorbed by a detail that transforms their perception of a painting, of life…A novel that joins the eternal literary quest to uncover the mysteries of art.’ – AirFrance Madame
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