Umbrellas

The rain started to fall the day Matteo disappeared. Before his sudden departure, Béatrice never thought she would need a life vest. To keep her head above water, she clings to Aisha, a young Somali woman who unexpectedly enters her kitchen at news time. Hand in hand with the teenager, she awaits the return of the man she has lived with for fifteen years. Meanwhile, Francesca grumbles downstairs, Daphnée dreams of meeting Doctor Zhivago, and Thalie concocts a fabulous plan to find her father. Between Italy and Quebec, in the shadow of a housing project and under the benevolent eye of Barack Obama, the clouds gather. It will rain for thirty-four days. Time enough to discover that umbrellas are necessary but fragile refuges. Especially when a wind rises.With her characteristic humor and subtlety, the author of Les Carnets de Douglas skillfully intertwines the destinies of women floating between the certainty that we all carry a lead weight within us and the hope of a brighter spell.