‘An exquisite portrait of a marriage adapting to the instability of parenthood, cast against a vivid backdrop of real Parisian life. A rare gem.’ NATASHA BROWN

‘An intimate, multi-dimensional cartography of both the city and her inner world.’ THE BIG ISSUE

‘Tuttle's skill reminds me of Elena Ferrante on authenticity: it is one thing to write precisely what happened, and another skill altogether to find a means and form for 'what is intimately ours and is difficult to say even to ourselves.’ KATHERINE BRABON, author of CURE, BODY FRIEND

‘Poignant, funny, tragic and enjoyably crude’ WESTWORDS

‘A paean to the big life, in all its fizzing, thrilling complexity.’ DOMINIC AMERENA

From the critically acclaimed author of Paris or Die and My Sweet Guillotine comes a powerfully written and deeply personal story of ambition, art and human nature in Paris.

On the métro I ask her if she can see the sea.
She points at me.
Not la mère, I laugh. La mer! The sea!
I can’t see the sea, or myself as a mother, right now. All I see is sneakers and a skateboard and two shabby suitcases, one blue, one red. A soft, sweet head, curls tied up in pigtails, my face in them …

Jayne is a new mother in Paris trying to balance her creative ambition and lust for city life with the instinctual urges of motherhood - and failing.

As her relationship with her husband and the city strains, she searches for answers in a friendship with an older Frenchwoman, the streets, the crowds, in art and writing and new wave cinema… but finds only more questions. Something has to give, but what?