A rare success for a first novel : masterful writing and colorful language […] inexhaustible tenderness which touches us profoundly. A pleasure from start to finish. — Entre les lignes

Helen, alias Joe, would rather be a boy and get into all kinds of adventures, like Lady Oscar, her favorite comic-strip heroine. In the working-class neighborhood where she and her family live, she makes friends with a new neighbor, Mister Roger, an old man who drinks like a fish, swears like a sailor, and dreams of dying. Through him, she realizes that adventure is all around you every day.