Nothing much happens in this book, and while I often really enjoy books that are so character driven, I think the characterization in this one wasn’t quite strong enough to make me fall in love with it. Perhaps it was the translation, but I think more likely it was the characters themselves. I was curious about their stories and invested enough to stay up reading, but I don’t feel like I loved it. Indeed, I think I am liable to forget elements of it quite quickly. 

So for my own recollection, here’s a quick summary of the standout moments:
We are introduced to Paulette at the very beginning of the novel as an elderly woman who has started to struggle to remember how to take care of her garden and herself. Her neighbor and friend, Yvonne, is determined to get her instituted at a retirement home, and she enlists vagabond grandson Franck to contribute his own pressure. Franck, for his part, loves his grandmother (who raised him) very much, but he struggles to show it, squeezing in visits on his day off from his very busy schedule as a chef in a restaurant and hesitant to show emotion. However, Franck is also resistant to the idea of moving his grandmother out of the house she loves and that he grew up in. These emotions are further compounded by the change in his living arrangements due to the choices of the other two protagonists. 

Camille is a waif. She works as an overnight cleaning lady and rarely (and barely) eats, particularly after interactions with her mother, whose depressive impulses have long made her anxious and miserable. Having entered into something of a depressive episode herself, Camille has lately stopped drawing and socializing, and she has moved into a flat owned by a family friend—up seven flights of stairs, under the roof, and absolutely freezing. Camille is drawn to the strange, stuttering character dressed in the clothing of the nobility who she encounters on the stairs, and they strike up a friendship that neither one is quite certain of. However, when Camille falls ill and disappears for several, Philibert finds himself obligated to check on her. Discovering her nearly unconscious and shivering, he carries her down the stairs to the apartment he shares (incidentally) with Franck. As Camille convalesces, both men are drawn to her, and it initiates a friendship that none of the three had been expecting. All socially awkward, their interactions are twinged with strangeness and tension, but the bonds they form are strong and meaningful. Eventually, Camille and Franck develop their own emotional connection through cooking, arguing, and drawing. 

Camille creates a plan to resolve Franck’s struggles with his grandmother by bringing her to live with them, which adds life and levity to all of their relationships, even as her health deteriorates, and the quartet travel to Tours for the final (somewhat saccharine) section of the novel.