Overview

A woman addresses letters to an absent loved one while in the apartment opposite hers, a mysterious female figure keeps on appearing under a landscape painter’s brush. Directing her reader and characters with a deftness reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Lucie Paye dramatizes the power of unconditional love and the role of the unconscious in artistic creation. From Paris to Naples, Mauritius and London Absence traces a poignant search for redemption and truth, among the lies that destroy lives.; ‘In this remarkable debut, the story of a painter fixated with a ghostly female figure becomes entwined with the story of a woman seeking to connect with a long-lost son. A delicate tale of artistic obsession and creation, and a moving meditation on longing and loss.’ — Ángel Gurría-Quintana, Financial Times

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9781739778316

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Reviews

'Enigmatic and magnetic' - Le Matricule des Anges; 'Lucie Paye spins a romantic epic in a world where people take time - to write, to linger in a museum, to be absorbed by a detail that transforms their perception of a painting, of life. A novel that joins the eternal literary quest to penetrate the mysteries of art' - AirFrance Madame; 'In her first novel Lucie Paye sets words to the page with a fine brush... Nothing is overworked, least of all pain. Paye appreciates the half-lights, and her delicate style favours these nuanced feelings. Within these pages is a melancholy and disquiet in the 'Pessoan' sense of the word, but they are never overcast ... 'Painters, like writers, are thieves. They transfer and transport landscapes, in their dreams and in their worlds,' wrote painter Kees van Dongen. Rarely have these words seemed so true as when reading this novel, at the confluence of the two art forms. Paye's novel explores the link between the artist and their work, through the unconscious and the creative process. It also examines the relation of the viewer of a work, projecting emotions and desires onto it - and seeing in it what we want to see. Our personal perspective can distance us from the artist's own intentions. It doesn't matter, the main thing is to have felt something, to have been given access to the things of which, without art, we could never have dreamed.' - Le Figaro Litteraire

Author Information

Lucie Paye's debut novel Les coeurs inquiets was published in 2020 to critical acclaim during the first lockdown in France in Editions Gallimard's prestigious Collection Blanche. Further to her studies at the Ecole du Louvre, she published several works on garden history. She lived in California for several years and now lives in London with her two children.

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