The illicit romance between Irene and Gabriel is revealed bit by bit, as is the growing rapport between Violette, Julien, and Julien's seven-year-old son Nathan. In this place of grey skies, Violette is at first considered a stillborn and the midwife doesn’t even place her on the abdomen of the mother who doesn’t want her, instead laying the unmoving baby on the radiator where the warmth draws her to life.

Violette Toussaint was a cemetery caretaker in a small town in France: Bourgogne- Brancion-en-Chaplin cemetery. Violette Trenet, born to a mother who doesn't want her, is thought to be stillborn until she unexpectedly turns pink and takes a breath.

A story of life with love, loss, yearning, sadness and all of the emotions that humans experience during their lifetimes. Even when there are lovely moments I am left unmoved, annoyed due to the histrionics, the caricatures, the constant coincidences, the stereotypes. Music, literature, especially her French translation of John Irving's Cider House Rules, which she uses as a road map for her life.

At almost 500 pages it could have used some serious editing IMO and has the same melancholy tone from beginning to end and a fair amount of redundancy. If you enjoy character-driven stories about betrayal, loss, hope, and love, then this story is for you. Planting, sorting seedlings, pricking out, positioning stakes, hoeing, weeding, taking cuttings, tidying the avenues, both of us leaning toward the earth, hands in the earth, all the time. Anche se a qualche svolta lo scenario proposto non è dei più plausibili, la mia sospensione dell'incredulità non è mai venuta meno). Violette is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne and finds solace and peace with her routine and habits.Violette Touissant is the reclusive cemetery keeper at Brancon-en-Chalon, a position she acquired after years working as a level crossing keeper.

She records every one in her notebook: the weather, the coffin, the flowers, the family and friends, the speeches. It took me a little while to become fully immersed in this heartbreaking and simultaneously life affirming story, but once I did, I was utterly entranced. She knows her quiet neighbors’ birth and death dates and often much of the story of what came in between; she tends affectionately to their graves, watering, weeding, cleaning. Un libro bellissimo, ambientato in un luoghi fuori dal comune, originale, sopra "un ponte" che la protagonista riesce a costruire tra i vivi e quelli che non ci sono più.She began life as an orphan, made a bad marriage at a young age, has experienced an unspeakable personal tragedy and has only 2 close friends.