[Translated by David Colmer]

For many years, ever since her husband, Monsieur Potter, committed suicide instead of waiting for his cancer to take him. Madame Verona has lived alone, at the top of a hill on the outskirts of a small village, Oucwegne. Preferring her own company to that of that of the eccentric residents of the village.

There is some disappointment, among the village men, when after a suitable period of grieving Madam Verona decides not to rejoin the community, but continue her solitude.

She’s waiting for the wood from the tree her husband hung himself from to ‘season’ enough that a cello can me made from it. Monsieur Potter, made sure he left his wife with enough firewood for the next twenty years, which should be time enough…

The already small village is slowly dwindling, the last few generations have been born almost entirely male, meaning an ever aging population and lack of new life to keep the village life going.

It gives a melancholy back-drop to the humorous snippets of village life through the  years, such as the time a cow was elected mayor, and the seriousness with which the game of table-football is taken!

Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill, is a lightly told tale that conveys the sense of a love lost in a wonderful way, it may appear that nothing much happens in the book, and indeed it was only a little while after I had finished the book, that I realised just how well it had done its job.

It’s then that I understood it was much more about the feelings it left you with than the story itself.

I don’t think it’s going to be the book for everyone, especially those who like a little ‘direction’ in their stories, but I really liked this one

Buy: Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verhulst from The Book Depository