The enthralling international bestseller. We are in the center
of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois
families. RenAce, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but
vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to
every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to
television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, RenAce is a
cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese
culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of
the buildingas tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her
existence. Then thereas Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is
the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and
startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the
sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will
continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre
pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an
outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. Paloma and
RenAce hide both their true talents and their finest qualities
from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They
discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu
arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Palomaas trust and
to see through RenAceas timeworn disguise to the secret that
haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts
the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.