Part 8 (2/2)

As the lift doors clattered shut on the fifth-floor landing, Frederic Pichier was ripping up the first forty pages of the book he had been working on and finally resolving to write a modern-day novel: the story of a French literature teacher in a tough school and the brilliant career of one of his pupils, Djamila. He could not imagine that the idea forming in his mind would go on to win the Goncourt.

While Laure was unlocking the door, immediately letting the cat out onto the landing, William was sitting outside a cafe waiting for Julien, a past lover he hadn't seen for ten years and who had just got back in touch through Facebook. Watching him arrive, he told himself that perhaps Julien had been the one all along.

Three arrondiss.e.m.e.nts away, with his fountain pen hovering above the page, Patrick Modiano had been debating for half an hour whether or not to put a comma after the first word of the last line of his new novel.

When Laurent and Laure fell onto the bed in the white bedroom, Patrick Modiano was still grappling with his punctuation conundrum. At the moment Laurent put his lips to her neck, Laure used her right foot to slip off her left ballet pump, which fell onto the parquet floor with a thud. Then she did the same with the other shoe. At the instant the second shoe landed on the same floorboard with the same sound, Patrick Modiano decided not to add a comma.

About the Author.

Antoine Laurain was born in Paris and is a journalist, antiques collector and the author of five novels, including The President's Hat.

Emily Boyce is in-house translator at Gallic Books. She lives in London. She has previously co-translated The President's Hat.

Jane Aitken is a publisher and translator from the French.

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