A weary psychotherapist is preparing for retirement and impatiently counting down how many sessions with patients he has left. The monotonous everyday life of his existence is disrupted by a young German patient, Agathe, who insists on therapy with him. For the first time in his life, he is forced to consider whether to step out of his shell and offer a helping hand to another person. This debut novel, which is being published in twenty countries, is set in post-war France, yet its themes of loneliness, reflection, aging, and falling in love are incredibly relevant. Many beautiful, vivid images from life 'seemingly incidentally' carry symbolic depth. With a sympathetic atmosphere, gentle humor, poetic and flowing language, and descriptions of young Agathe through the eyes of an old psychologist, it evokes the mood of Thomas Mann's famous Death in Venice.
