The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

From Amazon: "Renee is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels, with society's expectations of what a concierge should be.

But beneath this facade lies the real Renee: passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives. Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Renee lives resigned to her lonely lot with only her cat for company.

Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbors will dramatically alter their lives forever."

2015 article about the Author click here.
Movie trailer (French with caption) click here.
2009 Publishers Weekly profile click here.

We will meet to discuss The Elegance of the Hedgehog on Thursday, June 30, 2016 at 7pm, at the Atlantic Highlands branch of the Monmouth County Library located at 100 First Avenue, inside Borough Hall opposite Veterans Park in downtown Atlantic Highlands.