A woman who’s always been defined as a wife, mother, and rule follower makes the complicated choice to put her own happiness first in this stunning novel that's perfect for readers of Miranda July, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, and Sarah Manguso.

Annie and Hector have been hosting their friends Candace, Edouard, and their son, Remy, in the guest house of their Connecticut home for many months while their friends’ home undergoes renovations. As a thank-you, Candace gifts Annie French lessons with twenty-six-year-old local French tutor, Thierry. Hector, an actor, goes to film on location, leaving Annie—newly bereaving her mother—to single-parent their two kids. 

As the lessons progress, she finds herself unexpectedly vulnerable to the charms of a man closer in age to her own teenage daughter than to her own. A new life for Annie emerges, one she could never have foreseen.      

Told over the course of one year, through the shifting perspectives of wife, husband, lover, best friend and children, Walger paints a contradictory, nuanced portrait of a woman who walks away from every role that tradition and society have expected of her.