In A Good Life, French author Virginie Grimaldi delivers a sensitive, familial love story about the unrivaled, transformative bond of sisterhood. The novel is set in the beautiful Basque countryside, where the adult Delorme sisters, Emma and Agathe, are reunited after a five-year estrangement. The two are forced to come together to spend one last summer vacation at the home of their beloved--now deceased--grandmother, Mima. The seaside dwelling, about to be sold, holds dear memories that have anchored the sisters throughout their lives, despite their differences.
During the week shared at Mima's house for the last time, the Delorme sisters relive and revisit bygone stories. Short, evocative chapters render slice-of-life remembrances that take readers through episodes that defined and shaped the women's childhoods and teenage years--and probe stories of family and other loves and losses sustained into adulthood. These enlightening scenes are contrasted against their lives in the present. They come to discover how Mima and the "good times" they shared via her influence at the Basque house every summer served to calm and steady them through the storms of life. The deep challenges that befall the family mark the women's identities, personalities, and coping methods. Tensions build in the narrative as Emma and Agathe ultimately confront each other and tend to the wounds that drove them apart.
Grimaldi's concise prose, translated by Hildegarde Serle, is striking and vivid, painting a sympathetic portrait of the enduring bond of sisterhood. Readers will fall under the spell of a compassionately revealed story that blends poignancy and humor in depicting the transcendental nature of familial love and forgiveness. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines