When in French

Read When in French Storyline:

In her late 20s, Lauren Collins moved to London, and fell in love with, and married, Olivier, a handsome French mathematician. When he has to relocate to Geneva for his work, she decides to go with him. In Geneva, however, Lauren is lost for words, literally: not only can she not communicate to the local chimney-sweep when he visits, but, watching Olivier converse fluently in French every day, she is also made painfully aware that she has never really spoken to her husband in his own language. She can say, 'au revoir' and 'bonjour' but that's about it. 'Hello and goodbye were a pair of bookends,' she writes, 'propping up a vast library of blank volumes, void almanacs, novels full of sentiment I couldn't apprehend.' What will happen when she has children? she wonders. If they grow up speaking French, will they be stuck with a 'Borat of a mother' who can't properly understand them? So she embarks on a quest to learn French, and, in doing so, must tangle with the intricacies of...