Civilisation Française

Publisher: Heliotrope Books

“In Mary Fleming’s absorbing and affecting novel, a young American takes a course in French civilization and learns more than she bargains for – about sex, cooking, and a family’s unhappy past – and is the better for it. So is the reader.”

—- Lily Tuck, author of The News from Paraguay and winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

“Two women live uneasily on separate floors of a decrepit mansion in Paris. The younger can’t envision any future for herself. The older woman’s wish to live is failing. Mary Fleming weaves their stories together in Civilisation Française, a haunting novel about the pull of time past and future, and the courage to live fully one’s life and death.”

—- Laura Furman, author of Tuxedo Park and The Mother Who Stayed