Villa Amalia

Musician Ann Hidden suspects her partner, Thomas, isn’t telling her everything. So one dark night, she secretly follows him to an unfamiliar house in the Paris suburbs, where he disappears inside with an unknown woman. But before she can even begin to process what looks like a betrayal, she gets another surprise—an old schoolmate, Georges Roehlinger, appears, berating her for spying the from the bushes.

?With Georges’s help, Ann takes radical action: while Thomas is away, she resolves to secretly sell their shared house and get rid of all the physical manifestations of their sixteen years together. Thomas returns to find her gone, the locks changed, and his few possessions packed up and sent to his office. Ann, meanwhile, has fled the country and started a new, hidden life. But our past is never that easy to escape, and Ann’s secrets eventually seek her out.

Pascal Quignard is the author of a number of books, including The Sexual Night and Roving Shadows, the latter of which won the Prix Goncourt in 2002. Chris Turner is a translator and writer living in Birmingham, UK.