Today I’m joining the blog tour for Stories We Tell Ourselves by Sarah Françoise, published by Apollo (an imprint of Head of Zeus) on 5th April in hardcover and for kindle, with the paperback to follow in November. Described as “an illuminating, amusing, beautifully written meditation on relationships”, I really liked the look of this one but sadly couldn’t find a space in my reading list. See if you like the look of it as much as I did…
Written with a rare precision and insight, Sarah Françoise explores the thorniness of familial love and its capacity to endure with warmth, wit and disarming honesty.
Frank and Joan’s marriage is in trouble. Having spent three decades navigating the trials and tribulations of enduring love and parenthood in their unfinished house in the French alps, Joan’s frustrations with her inattentive husband have reached breaking point. Frank, retreating ever further into his obscure hobbies, is distracted by an epistolary affair with his long-lost German girlfriend. Things are getting tense. But it’s Christmas, and the couple are preparing to welcome home their three far-flung children.
The children, though, are faring little better in love themselves. Maya, a gender expert mother-of-two, is considering leaving her family and running off with a woman; Wim is considering leaving his girlfriend; and Lois, who spends her time turning war documentaries into love poems, is facing a change of heart.
I’d hoped to have some content for you today – but the extract I’d hoped for didn’t arrive, so my apologies. I hope the book description will be enough of a temptation…
About the author
Sarah Françoise is a French-British writer and translator currently living in Brooklyn, NYC. Her writing has appeared in Joyland, Bone Bouquet, Hobart and Poor Claudia.