The Beginners is a compelling story both original and universal of one woman and a choice she couldn't make; a tale of yearning, of regrets, and of memories. Anne Serre reinvents the vocabulary of love to deliver, in lucid fragments, a feverish and detailed analysis of romantic enchantment, like an archeologist of desire.

Anne Lore, now forty-three, has lived with Guillaume for twenty years. Their life together has been so blissfully smooth that she has never had to question her childhood belief in the possibility of two people being entirely united as one. Until she meets Thomas.

Thomas reminds her of everyone and no one but creates a clear vision of that illusive and ever-changing figure she has held deep inside her as a girl—her Prince Charming. Yet, the man who is Thomas remains as mysterious as her feelings for him. The desire she feels for him, to simply press her naked skin against his, is like nothing she ever felt for Guillaume. Guillaume, however, has given her more happiness than anyone, even Thomas, ever could. The two men begin to turn and twist in her mind, constantly changing places and sliding in and out of focus.

Serre tells the story of the triangle from a studied distance so that neither Anne, nor Thomas, nor Guillaume is the main character, but rather love itself. The Beginners is a deft portrayal of love's complexities and contradictions, its fleeting and fluid nature; a character completely familiar and yet one that has seldom before been seen as clearly.