Dominique Barberis

In this subtly haunting novel, a married woman confesses her encounter with a mysterious man, which threatens the stilted calm of life in a Paris suburb. Echoing the acclaimed and unsettling film Sundays and Cyb le from 1962, A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray is suffused with the same feeling of disquiet: Two sisters meet as the light is fading in a detached house in Ville-d'Avray, each filled with the memory of their childhood dreams and fears, their insatiable desire for the romantic, for wild landscapes worthy of Jane Eyre, and for a mad love, all concealed beneath the appearance of a sensible life. They confide in each other. One tells of an unlikely meeting in this seemingly peaceful provincial town. The other recounts, to her sister's amazement, her wanderings around the Fausses-Reposes forest, the Corot Ponds, and the suburban train stations, and the lurking dangers she encountered there. In this arresting novel reminiscent of Simenon, Dominique Barb ris explores the great depths of the human soul, troubled like the waters of the ponds.