C’est l’histoire d’une photographie volée, d’une nuit sans fin, d’un amour éperdu. C’est l’histoire d’un soulèvement du cœur, d’un rapt consenti, d’une échappée féerique à travers l’Europe jusqu’en Grèce, d’une folle disparition dans le chaos du monde. C’est l’histoire d’Hélène et de son abandon.
Hugues Jallon a conféré à cette romance une durée hors norme, une intensité captivante, un parfum d’éternel recommencement. Le roman-photo qui s’enchevêtre dans l’histoire donne à voir, entre Hélène et son mystérieux amant, le tableau vivant d’un amour impossible.



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Loïc and Hélène have two children. They live in a charming little house in Libourne, south of France. Nothing would have troubled their peaceful existence were it not for Loïc’s old classmate Richard, a society lawyer, who invites them to his 40th birthday party in Paris, in his elegant apart¬ment near the Opera. The evening is in full swing when, in another room, Helen falls asleep on a sofa, suddenly overcome by a disturbing erotic dream. A stranger sitting across from her snaps a photo of her with his cell-phone, just before she wakes up in tears and Loïc insists on taking her back to the hotel before the end of the evening. As soon as her husband has gone to bed, Hélène slips out and, like a sleep-walker, returns to the party where the stranger, still seated in the same place, takes the hand of his “beautiful dreamer”… The two of them leave at dawn; hop on a train, then rent a car for a long journey that will take them to Greece, where they find refuge in the centre of Athens.
Beginning with this sudden love at the first sight, born of a heartfelt uprising and a stolen photo, Hugues Jallon lends to this extra-conjugal romance a disturbingly radical nature, between passion and abduction. In a style that is in turn dreamlike or elusive, he gives his characters a troubling depth that reminds one of some of Antonioni’s films. In the same manner, excerpts of foto-novelas entwined with the story translate the impossible dialogue that makes this relationship as passionate as it is doomed.




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‘‘ At the centre of this book, it all starts because this man took a picture of this woman. And then, Hugues Jallon will show us what it can’t be shown.’’

FranceCulture

‘‘ Hugues Jallon, a little playfully, with a discrete sense of humor, makes you feel how much what happens between lovers is invisible to anyone outside.’’

LeMonde