The Sea in the Metro

On the métro I ask her if she can see the sea.
She points at me.
Not la mère, I laugh. La mer! The sea!
I can’t see the sea, or myself as a mother, right now. All I see is sneakers and a skateboard and two shabby suitcases, one blue, one red. A soft, sweet head, curls tied up in pigtails, my face in them …

Jayne is a new mother in Paris trying to balance her creative ambition and lust for city life with the instinctual urges of motherhood - and failing.

As her relationship with her husband and the city strains, she searches for answers in a friendship with an older Frenchwoman, the streets, the crowds, in art and writing and new wave cinema… but finds only more questions. Something has to give, but what?

From the critically acclaimed author of Paris or Die and My Sweet Guillotine comes a powerfully written story of desire, art and the complexity of modern womanhood.