Jean-Baptiste Andrea excels once again in depicting the distinctive destinies of those isolated from the world. A book about childhood, where innocence is confronted with the harshness of the world. Everything is told in a style that is sometimes serious, sometimes poetic, light-hearted and then enigmatic, with infinite delicacy. If “all orphans have hands that tremble” the writer does too, without a doubt. – La Croix

He plays Beethoven on train station pianos. An orphaned child finds, and loses, love. The third novel by a striking, unique talent.

An orphan, a love story.

An old man gives divine Beethoven performances on street pianos. Call me Joe, he says, short for Joseph. One day he is at the station, the next at the airport. He squanders his virtuoso talent on indifferent faces that hurry past without listening. He waits. But what, or who, is he waiting for?

As a child, he was sent to a Christian boarding school in the Pyrenees. Les Confins. The edge of the world. A place for waifs and strays, for abandoned souls. His days were filled with routine, drudgery, physical abuse. Until the day he met Rose, a young woman his own age. Together, they dreamed of running away from it all.

A delicate, subtle portrait of childhood emotions and ideals.

Jean-Baptiste Andrea has a fabulous talent for evoking the child inside all of us. His heroes are at the age of pain and revolt. Devils and Saints masterfully completes his trilogy on childhood.