Camille is doing her best to disappear. She barely eats, works at night as a cleaner & lives in a tiny attic room. Philibert Marquet de La Durbellière is a stammering, erudite aristocrat who sells postcards outside a museum. One evening he overcomes his own excruciating reticence to rescue Camille, unconscious, from her freezing garret, & install her in the large, ornate apartment he is caretaking downstairs. He already has an unlikely flatmate, the foul-mouthed, talented working-class young chef, Franck, who is made more obnoxious by guilt about the beloved grandmother he's had to put in a home. Together, this curious, damaged little quartet may be able to face the world.
Gorgeously original, full of wry humour & razor-sharp observation, redolent of Paris, its foibles, its food & its neglected corners, Hunting & Gathering is a universal story about despair, love & the virtues of ensemble-playing in a naughty world.
It's a big novel that you will not want to put down.