Pierre is a veteran bartender in a café in the outskirts of Paris. He observes his customers as they come and go – the young man who drinks beer as he reads Primo Levi, the fellow who from time to time strips down and plunges into the nearby Seine, the
"Fabre’s unexpectedly touching novel has a laugh of its own behind its low-key, smoothly translated narrative voice ... The city it evokes isn’t the Paris of tourists but of local people."—The New York Times"Fabre is a genius of these nuanced, inter