Your Promise by Camille Laurens (He takes a deep breath. “I’d like you to promise you’ll never write about me.”)

(photo credit of the mimosa tree here)

“Claire,” I want to say, “don’t his two previous relationships present a warning?” For as her relationship with Gilles builds, she seems to ignore that has he left both his wife, Élizabeth, and his subsequent lover, Violetta.

But, love is not necessarily based on reason. As their passion deepens, and with it her dependence, Claire stands on very precarious ground. Gilles is nothing if not persuasive. He even makes her promise that she will never write about him, although she is an author.

He is a puppet master. No, really: he performs with puppets in the theater. He controls their strings. The puppets he manipulates are not always makes of wood. Some are made of ice. They have to be managed very skillfully, or the joints will crack and break; during the performance, the puppet slowly melts.

Oh, Claire. As she tells her story the suspense builds, and eventually we are uncertain if she has lost her mind, or if Gilles is that masterful a puppeteer. I mean, lover. He persuades her to sell her house in Paris in order for them to buy a little place in Hyères with a mimosa tree in the front yard. She can stay in his apartment when she needs to be in Paris for her writing, or her social life. It will be wonderful! Not long after they move in the mimosa tree, which people come from all around to see, dies. What a terribly significant event this turns out to be.

All along there is an undercurrent of psychological tension. We know that something terrible has happened, as we listen to Claire tell her story through her own narrative, her relationship with Gilles, her friends, and even her lawyer. It is revealed through translucent layers, each building upon something quite dark.

The author, Camille Laurens, calls into question the definition of love. Can women ever receive that which we hope for, from our fathers, husbands, or lovers? Or, as she maintains, are we all fearful of abandonment? (I thought that was such a personal fear, but perhaps not.) Your Promise will reside in my mind for a very long time, as I contemplate the ability to keep a promise. Or, why, we even make them to one another in the first place.

They seem so very difficult to keep.

Camille Laurens is an award-winning French novelist and essayist. She received the Prix Femina, one of France’s most prestigious literary prizes in 2000 for Dans ces bras-là, which was published in the United States as In His Arms in 2004. Her previous books include Who You Think I Am (2017), Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (2018), and Girl (2022). She lived in Paris.

Thanks to Other Press for sending me this incredible novel to read and review. It is a precursor to the books I’ll read for Paris in July 2026.