On the Causse du Quercy, a woman, whose profession is to write down the last words of people at the end of their lives, finds herself living temporarily in a craftsman’s workshop in the middle of nowhere, where she adopts a sickly stray dog. With the rhythm of the seasons, she watches over the life of the Causse, while recalling a painful past. She absorbs herself in a daily routine of simple, profound gestures, attentive to her immediate surroundings and the inhabitants she gradually meets: a few sheep, cows, dog ticks, a scops owl, a dormouse, deer, hare cats, pine processionary, a family of foxes, a wild boar, a marten and even a squirrel.
In this luminous new novel, written in sumptuous language, Sandrine Bourguignon pays close attention to the slightest animal and plant rustle, with extreme precision in her choice of words, whether they refer to flora, fauna or human emotions. A deeply organic text.
