The House I Loved

As Rose Bazelet hides in the basement of her Paris home, she can hear the rumble of advancing work crews destroying buildings to make way for the grand boulevards as envisioned by Napoléon III and Baron Haussmann. To pass the time, she writes letters to her late husband, recalling their life together and the decade since he died. In her widowhood, she is befriended by a flower shop owner, who becomes like a daughter to her, and a bookstore proprietor, who introduces her to literature. She mourns the destruction of her neighborhood's familiar narrow streets and rails against changes imposed in the name of progress. Because the novel depends on Rose's perspective and memories, the characters and settings are curiously flat. Her alienation from her own daughter and deep bond with the florist seem equally arbitrary. Even the basic premise of Rose's refusal to abandon the house seems implausible, especially after she reveals the secret of the violence she suffered there decades earlier.