Thank you for making your readers feel more alive. — Alexandre Jardin, author of Le Zèbre (Prix Femina 1988)

Passionate — France Inter

I enjoyed myself. Magnificent. — France Info

After the success of We’re Screwed, We Think Too Much (On est foutu, on pense trop), Serge Marquis is back with an enchanting psychological fairy tale in a similar vein to Laurent Gounelle and Raphaëlle Giordano Your Second Life Starts when You Realize that You Only Have One (Ta deuxième vie commence quand tu comprends que tu n’en a qu’une).

Obsessed with brain cancer, Maryse clings to her identity as an eminent pediatric neurologist, desperately seeking recognition. But Charlot, her atypical son – a child who both enchants and exasperates her – forces her to ask herself awkward questions, backing her into a corner.

The thing is Charlot, 9, is confronted with surprising philosophical and existential questions: what meaning does life have when you have a fatal disease? How can we resist intimidation, stupidity, fear of the other? And above all: what is the ego, that thing that seems to make everyone suffer so?

To accompany him in his search for enlightenment, his mother, the misnamed Maryse Du Bonheur (Maryse Happiness), will have to jettison her smug self-satisfaction, strip away everything she thought she believed in, and learn to “truly love herself”.

A specialist in community health, as well as a consultant on mental health in the workplace, Dr. Serge Marquis is a popular speaker both at conferences and in the media. In 1995, he started his own consulting firm, T.O.R.T.U.E (“Turtle”: The Organization for Reducing Tension and Burn-Out at Work).