Middle age is a time for reflection. But for Jocelyne Guerbette, the 47-year-old owner of a haberdashery in Arras, France, the stakes grow higher when she wins an $18-million lottery jackpot. For more than 20 years, Jocelyne has lived an uneventful life in "a dreary town, no airport, a grey place." She has endured the loss of a child and marital ups and downs to a handsome man, now sober, who works for Häagen-Dazs and whom Jocelyne imagines dreams of driving a Porsche and being married to a younger, thinner wife. She loves her two adult children, but they clearly have lives of their own. Tending to the shop, cultivating lighthearted friendships and caring for an infirm and much-adored father have sustained her, along with maintaining a successful blog that has enough "unique visitors" that advertisers now want space.
Jocelyne narrates Gregoire Delacourt's compressed, evocative My Wish List in short, revelatory chapters, infused with an unexpected twist that speaks volumes about the nature of truth, love and happiness. When Jocelyne learns of her lottery win, she is faced with a choice: share the news or hide the truth? As Jocelyne reassesses her life--and everything and everyone in it--she compiles lists of what she might do with the winnings. Should she buy a potato peeler? A flat-screen TV? Or maybe a home by the sea? Or would the money wreck the however imperfect life that Jocelyne comes to believe she deeply loves? --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines