A Couple: What If the End Was Just the Beginning? a Parisian Love Story, Told in Reverse

A stirring and touching reminder that lasting love can exist after all, against all odds.

Told in reverse chronology, this novel follows Alice and Jules, who are eighty-five years old. They meet on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. Children are playing by the pool, a ray of sunshine breaks through the leaves of the trees. Is it déjà vu? Because what they now risk forgetting, and what began sixty years ago, started here: their life together. Step by step, from the end to the beginning. Age, routine, affairs, jealousy, becoming parents, marriage, passion: the two of them experienced all of this against the backdrop of Paris and the major historical upheavals of the last decades. This hopeful and tender book asks how love can endure and what holds us together.

Perfect for book clubs--includes themes of love, memory, and history that spark discussion.

Author: Eliette Abecassis
Publisher: Arctis
Published: 10/14/2025
Pages: 198
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.37lbs
Size: 5.00h x 7.50w x 0.57d
ISBN: 9781646900497


Review Citation(s):
Foreword 08/25/2025

About the Author
Eliette Abécassis is a French writer and philosopher of Moroccan-Jewish descent, born in France. She also writes for the theater, the movies, and French songs. She regularly appears on television, on the radio, and collaborates with newspapers such as the Huffington Post, Elle, and Le Figaro.

She is committed to associations for the defense of the rights of women and children and against violence against women: Le CorP, which she helped to create, against the commodification of women and children, as well as Exils intra muros, which defends families in the street. She lives in Paris.

Johanna McCalmont is a freelance translator and interpreter from Norther Ireland. She obtained an MA in French and German at the University of Edinburgh, followed by an MSc in Translation and Interpreting at Heriot Watt University. She translates from Dutch, French, German, and Italian. Her work has been featured by No Man's Land, New Books in German, and the European Literature Network. In 2020, she was a finalist in the Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation. She is a passionate advocate for children's books in translation and is a regular contributor to the World Kid Lit blog.

In addition to working as a translator, she also interprets at international conferences and literary events such as the Bergen International Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Hay Festival, and the International Booker Prize.