Agnès can hardly believe it when the police ask her to identify the body of her aunt Colette, who has just died. It can’t be possible — she died three years ago; her remains rest in the cemetery of Gueugnon. And yet, there she is: it’s her. So who is lying in her grave, beneath the headstone bearing her name? And why did Colette make everyone believe for three years that she was dead?
With the help of old friends, unexpected testimonies, and a mysterious suitcase full of cassette tapes, Agnès begins to unravel secrets and reconstruct the story of a family — her own. She had always seen her aunt Colette as a woman who passed through life without leaving a trace, but now she understands something that should never be forgotten: we all have a story; we all have something to tell.
Can words, written or spoken, change our present and, even more, give us another past? With moving delicacy and a unique voice, Valérie Perrin — the great storyteller of our lives — brings together the destinies and lives of several women and delivers a masterful novel that illuminates the deepest and most human part of who we are.