Book description
When Alice, an elderly woman, smells the coffee her husband Jules has
just made, she gets up. This ritual repeats itself every day, until
one morning she finds him lifeless on the sofa in the living room the
coffee hasnt quite finished filtering through. While Jules slowly
turns into a statue that seems to be carved out of marble, Alice
reminisces about earlier days and tells him things she hasnt dared or
been able to express before. When subsequently she has to come to
terms with the sorrow and loss she is faced with, David, the autistic
young son of a woman who lives in the same apartment building, becomes
part of this process in an unexpected way. This deeply moving Belgian
novel has been translated into many languages. The German edition
alone has sold over 120,000 copies.
Diane Broeckhoven has written close to 30 books, which have earned
her various awards and have been translated worldwide. De
buitenkant van meneer Jules was published to great acclaim in
2001. She lives in Antwerp, Belgium.
