A lyrical work full of hope and children set in lustrous modern-day Paris.

Fanny and Gerard fall in love in a way that surprises even them as their lives fill with good sex and loving companionship; but they long for a child to complete their happiness. Two of Fanny's lesbian friends feel similarly driven by the need to have a child. Jean-Marie is an internationally regarded professor of philosophy whose adoring students are willing sexual partners, but perhaps philosophy can't bear the weight of human emotion. When Gerard buys a beautiful old house in the suburbs, the disturbing contents of the attic binds the stories into an intriguing and darkly disturbing knot. Capturing the contemporary Parisian lives of an interwoven group of friends, this intoxicating work is written by a literary novelist at the height of her powers.