The Palm Tree
Original title: Le palmier
Synopsis
The invention of memories
Like the picture books of our childhood, Valentine Goby delivers a coming-of-age novel that is both serious and luminous: the kaleidoscopic portrait of a little girl who seeks to elucidate the mystery of growing up through her connections to nature and writing.
Vive is a child whose universe consists of the trees in the family garden, the exotic essences that her father, a perfumer by trade, brings back from his long travels, and the new words that she records in her notebook to gain a purchase on the world around her. But behind this seemingly unthreatening façade lurk wounds that will take a long time to heal…
Drawing its inspiration from lived experience, The Palm Tree is the tale of a heroine who, like the author herself, finds herself confronted early on with both the beauty of nature and the brutality of certain men. A blend of coming-of-age novel, family chronicle and autobiographical fiction, it is both a picture book and a jigsaw that poetically explores the fascinating and intimate terrains of childhood, the powers of the imagination, and the adventure of writing.
Marketing Information
- The novelist’s major themes – childhood, beauty, nature, language, emancipation, inner adventure – are found here in a more personal book.
- The author’s first novel with autobiographical material, already explored in the story Baumes (AS, 2014).
- A puzzle novel, made up of around forty short chapters, in the style of the picture books of our childhood. A unique format that makes the book addictive .
- A writing that is both precise and poetic, which immerses us in the world of perfumery, essences and scents.
- A reflection on the imagination, writing, and the vocation of a writer.
