First Novel

Agathe is a young Parisian philosophy graduate who orchestrates her life with complete freedom. Her father is a publisher whom she adores; her mother is a Chilean refugee whose past life is a painful and unspoken secret. First Novel covers two months in Agathe's life in Paris and London. She and her boyfriend Victor form the nucleus of a small bohemian group in Paris, a young intellectual elite of diverse social backgrounds. The two share a passion for creating different worlds and for inventing new rules and, because they love one another, they believe in a profound, complete and adaptable fidelity. However, one day reality intrudes to shatter these principles. Their carefully organised world of hedonism and liberation from the conventions of society and morality comes crashing down around them. Mazarine Pingeot's novel succeeds both as a powerful reflection of our times and as a stimulating novel of ideas.