Life Is Short and Desire Endless

331 pp. Translated into English from the original French by Adriana Hunter. Winner of the 2010 Prix Femina. This delicious novel revolves around a classic love triangle: two men and one woman. She is English, they are French and American. The Frenchman is married, the American is not. None of this makes any difference. The woman - elusive, unreliable, a classic femme fatale - flits back and forth between her two lovers, driving them both mad. Lapeyre's subtle, graceful, yet compulsively readable narrative shows us the folly of men who fall helplessly in love with women they don't understand. Its theme is universal and its humor is sly. It is the perfect introduction in English to this brilliant writer's work.