My Sunday Book Review is for a beautiful and heartfelt book – Love Letters from Montmartre by Nicolas Barreau.
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Blurb:
Blurb:
For fans of Nina George, Elena Ferrante, and Valentina Cebeni, a charming, uplifting novel about a man who sets out to fulfil his dead wife’s last wish.
Julien Azouly, the famous French writer of beautiful romance novels, has stopped believing in love. When his beloved wife, Hélène, dies at the age of thirty-three, leaving him alone to raise their young son, Arthur, he is so devastated that he loses faith in the happier side of life—and along with that his ability to write.
But Hélène was clever. Before her death, she made her husband promise to write her thirty-three letters, one for each year of her life. Six months after the funeral, Julien finds himself standing in the most famous cemetery in Paris, the painful first letter in his hand. Little does he know that something strange—and wonderful—is about to happen.
An ode to love, Paris, and joie de vivre, Love Letters from Montmartre brings the reader down narrow streets, past the cozy red bistro on Rue Gabrielle, and all the way to Montmartre cemetery with its beautiful stone angels, where we will discover the truth we all hope to find: that love is real, that miracles can happen and that—most of all—it’s never too late to rediscover your dreams. Empathetic and wise, this is the deeply profound yet very human story of a man who finds love just when he thinks all is lost.
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My 5 Star Review:
We are introduced to Julien Azoulay in Montmartre, France as he stands visiting his young wife’s grave with their little boy Arthur. Julian speaks in first person point of view as he tells his story; and the author uses epistolary writing style for Julien’s communication in the thirty-three letters to his wife Helene who had requested he write to her after she dies- one letter for every year of her life.
But it’s been six months now and he can’t bring himself to write anything because he is so broken, but he also has promised a book delivery date for his publisher, which is now already one year late. Julien’s dilemma about writing to his wife – “How do you write to a person you loved more than everything, but who no longer exists?” And with his grief-stricken writer’s block he has nothing in him to write a comedy novel for his publisher.
Julien is drowning in grief and doesn’t see the point of writing letters to his beloved that she will never get to read. But she promised him she will be able to read them, and after he writes them all, something wonderful will happen in his life.
Julien finally asserts himself to write that first letter of heartfelt sadness, filling Helene in on their little boy’s life and how much better his son is adjusting, better than himself, as Arthur is okay knowing his mom is now an angel, despite the many dreams he has of her. Julien feels like the love of his life was ripped from him, and that everything else now in his life feels like pretend. I felt that.
One day while visiting Helene’s grave, Julien meets Sophie who is a sculptor who fixes damaged gravestones. Julien learns a lot about life and death from their coincidental meetings. Julien’s friendship with his wife’s best friend, Catherine, develops too. Catherine has been kind enough to help out with little Arthur, but steeped in her own grief over the loss of her best friend, the two avoid each other until one day when they fall apart with each other and their loneliness catches up with them. In the aftermath, the guilt Julien feels as though he betrayed his wife, leads him into visiting her grave and asking for a sign of forgiveness. Meanwhile, Catherine is harboring secret attraction to Julien.
Julien has been hiding his letters to his wife in a secret opening in her gravestone. One day he visits and goes to add another letter to the secret spot, and finds they’re all gone. Julien becomes consumed with how this could be. In this moment he becomes a believer. “The fact that someone dies doesn’t mean they aren’t here.”
The mystery of the missing letters has Julien wondering who could be taking, reading the letters, and leaving objects of poetry, songs, and love quotes in their place for him to find. Julien keeps busy with his son, his letters and visiting Helene’s grave often. All the while he, and us the readers, are wondering who is taking his letters. Julien doesn’t figure this out until the end of the book.
Through the gifts left to him and some surprising other incidents that occurred in Julien’s life, in between letters, he is learning that he does hunger for love more than he wants to remain a depressed and broken person. And through his time of writing those letters, he met new people, which Helene knew would ultimately bring her Julien happiness once again.
Julien had once seen a beautiful inscription in a slab of stone inscribed with “We will have each other again, like once in May. But until then, I will live and love.” He remembered that epitaph from time to time, and eventually learns how to find peace in that statement.
This quote hit home with me:
Quote: “It feels strange to go everywhere on my own now. And mainly, to leave alone.”
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