What do you think?
Rate this book
Valley of Grace
Valley of Grace is an interwoven narrative of modern day Paris.
Fanny and Gerard fall in love in a way that surprises even them as their lives fill with good sex and loving companionship. But they long for a child to complete their happiness. Two of Fanny's lesbian friends feel similarly driven by the need to have a child. But how to make that possible?
Jean-Marie is an internationally regarded professor of philosophy whose adoring students are willing sexual partners fulfilling the tenets of his libertarianism. But perhaps philosophy can't bear the weight of human emotion.
When Gerard buys a beautiful old house in the suburbs, the disturbing contents of the attic binds the stories into an intriguing and darkly disturbing knot.
Valley of Grace is a lyrical work full of hope and children, written by one of Australia's most loved novelists at the height of her powers. Savour it.
Fanny and Gerard fall in love in a way that surprises even them as their lives fill with good sex and loving companionship. But they long for a child to complete their happiness. Two of Fanny's lesbian friends feel similarly driven by the need to have a child. But how to make that possible?
Jean-Marie is an internationally regarded professor of philosophy whose adoring students are willing sexual partners fulfilling the tenets of his libertarianism. But perhaps philosophy can't bear the weight of human emotion.
When Gerard buys a beautiful old house in the suburbs, the disturbing contents of the attic binds the stories into an intriguing and darkly disturbing knot.
Valley of Grace is a lyrical work full of hope and children, written by one of Australia's most loved novelists at the height of her powers. Savour it.
247 pages
First published January 3, 2009
4 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Marion Halligan
37 books18 followersMarion Halligan AM was an Australian writer and novelist. Born and educated in Newcastle, New South Wales, she worked as a school teacher and journalist prior to turning to full time writing.
A long time resident of Canberra, she was a member of a group of women writers based in Canberra known as the "Canberra Seven" or "Seven Writers" (1980-1997).
She has won and been shortlisted for numerous significant awards, notably for The Point, Lovers' Knots, Spider Cup and The Golden Dress.
In 2006 Halligan was made a Member in the Order of Australia (AM), General Division, for services to literature and for her work in promoting Australian literature.
A long time resident of Canberra, she was a member of a group of women writers based in Canberra known as the "Canberra Seven" or "Seven Writers" (1980-1997).
She has won and been shortlisted for numerous significant awards, notably for The Point, Lovers' Knots, Spider Cup and The Golden Dress.
In 2006 Halligan was made a Member in the Order of Australia (AM), General Division, for services to literature and for her work in promoting Australian literature.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 13, 2014
‘Fanny Picart works in an antiquarian bookshop.’
Valley of Grace is set in France, in a number of different locales, including an antiquarian bookshop in the Latin Quarter, a painstakingly restored eighteenth century apartment, a sprawling suburban manor house with its own secrets, and a cobblestoned village. At the centre of the novel are Fanny and Gérard. While Fanny and Gérard’s story of love and marriage is quite conventional, it is their connections to the lives of other characters with their differing experiences of love and frequently of loss that provide depth to this novel. And in one of those parallel tales, the politics of sex is paramount. Sabine is the wife of Jean-Marie, a celebrated professor of philosophy. Sabine is responsible for providing Jean-Marie with a serene environment untroubled by domestic concerns. Sabine is also responsible for managing the arrangements for the young women who keep Jean-Marie physically satisfied. After all, Jean-Marie’s needs must be met, regardless of the cost to others.
When Gérard decides to buy a rundown manor house in the suburbs, he makes a chilling discovery that will reverberate through the lives of both couples.
The Paris described in Ms Halligan’s novel is an elegant place, full of grace and historical continuity. It has, at times, a fairytale quality: clean and white, quiet and comfortable. Some subtle change is evident: Luc, the owner of the bookshop in which Fanny works lives with his boyfriend Julien; their lesbian friends Claude and Agnès want to conceive a child; while Fanny and Gérard are also trying to conceive. But there’s more to this story (or series of related stories) than the lives of those in the present. There are secrets from the past which have both the power to shock and to remind the reader that society continues to change, even when restoring the past is seen as desirable. Old and new, past and present: each has a place. Buildings and people provide a (or is it the?) link.
I picked this novel up, and couldn’t put it down. I fell in love with the bookshop, and the descriptions of the hand-made children’s clothing. I despised Jean-Marie, felt sorry for Sabine and wondered whether Fanny and Gérard would have the child they wanted. Most other characters had less impact on me, but the secret of the manor house will stay with me for a long time.
For me, this is a book to reread at some stage.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Valley of Grace is set in France, in a number of different locales, including an antiquarian bookshop in the Latin Quarter, a painstakingly restored eighteenth century apartment, a sprawling suburban manor house with its own secrets, and a cobblestoned village. At the centre of the novel are Fanny and Gérard. While Fanny and Gérard’s story of love and marriage is quite conventional, it is their connections to the lives of other characters with their differing experiences of love and frequently of loss that provide depth to this novel. And in one of those parallel tales, the politics of sex is paramount. Sabine is the wife of Jean-Marie, a celebrated professor of philosophy. Sabine is responsible for providing Jean-Marie with a serene environment untroubled by domestic concerns. Sabine is also responsible for managing the arrangements for the young women who keep Jean-Marie physically satisfied. After all, Jean-Marie’s needs must be met, regardless of the cost to others.
When Gérard decides to buy a rundown manor house in the suburbs, he makes a chilling discovery that will reverberate through the lives of both couples.
The Paris described in Ms Halligan’s novel is an elegant place, full of grace and historical continuity. It has, at times, a fairytale quality: clean and white, quiet and comfortable. Some subtle change is evident: Luc, the owner of the bookshop in which Fanny works lives with his boyfriend Julien; their lesbian friends Claude and Agnès want to conceive a child; while Fanny and Gérard are also trying to conceive. But there’s more to this story (or series of related stories) than the lives of those in the present. There are secrets from the past which have both the power to shock and to remind the reader that society continues to change, even when restoring the past is seen as desirable. Old and new, past and present: each has a place. Buildings and people provide a (or is it the?) link.
I picked this novel up, and couldn’t put it down. I fell in love with the bookshop, and the descriptions of the hand-made children’s clothing. I despised Jean-Marie, felt sorry for Sabine and wondered whether Fanny and Gérard would have the child they wanted. Most other characters had less impact on me, but the secret of the manor house will stay with me for a long time.
For me, this is a book to reread at some stage.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 16, 2014
It’s two or three days since I finished reading Valley of Grace, and I’m still savouring the reading of it. It’s always such a pleasure to read Marion Halligan’s novels … I save them up when a new one comes along and wait to read them in the same way that I save a box of expensive chocolates for just the right moment.
Valley of Grace is not the first of Halligan’s novels to be set in Paris. The Golden Dress (1998) was too, but I hadn’t been there when I read it and though I loved the novel, its Parisian textures just added to the constant temptation to swap the mortgage for a suitcase. Now, (having vanquished the mortgage) I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Paris three times, and Halligan’s lyrical descriptions make me want to sell up my dear little house that I took so long to buy – so that I might rent an apartment somewhere in that gorgeous city. Halligan is a seductress with her pen…
Fanny is married to Gérard Tisserand who is a restorer of old buildings. Halligan makes even this grubby renovation process seem romantic. Fanny’s father – a developer of modern buildings – had spoken disparagingly of Gérard but for Fanny it is love at first sight:
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/02/08/va...
Valley of Grace is not the first of Halligan’s novels to be set in Paris. The Golden Dress (1998) was too, but I hadn’t been there when I read it and though I loved the novel, its Parisian textures just added to the constant temptation to swap the mortgage for a suitcase. Now, (having vanquished the mortgage) I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Paris three times, and Halligan’s lyrical descriptions make me want to sell up my dear little house that I took so long to buy – so that I might rent an apartment somewhere in that gorgeous city. Halligan is a seductress with her pen…
Fanny is married to Gérard Tisserand who is a restorer of old buildings. Halligan makes even this grubby renovation process seem romantic. Fanny’s father – a developer of modern buildings – had spoken disparagingly of Gérard but for Fanny it is love at first sight:
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/02/08/va...
February 9, 2021
A gentle book of interwoven stories that makes for compelling reading. The writing has a lyrical quality to it and the setting is a beautifully evocative Paris. I had to keep reminding myself that the author is not French, but Australian. Wanting children, having or not having children, and relationships within families are common themes here, but there are also glimpses into the past, especially the experience of Nazi occupation.
November 14, 2023
For some reason really enjoyed this . Set in France ,lots about old books ,buildings and food ! A gentle story with a few nasty twists. Didn't know the author before this book but will be watching out for her other books .
Read
April 5, 2009Like it’s delicate burnished cover, Valley of Grace has an understated richness. It’s a quiet novel in that there is little overt dialogue, and the action takes place slowly, carefully, observed through the gentle lens of its main character Fanny. The novel is set in Paris, and, like its characters, the city is seen through a soft focus that only a loving visitor could provide. It’s a Paris of renovation, of food markets full of exquisite produce, of antiquarian bookshops and wonderful, magical chocolate shops. Fanny is interested in the history of the buildings around her, and these interests and tidbits of historical fact are conveyed to the reader. Fanny fits her Paris beautifully. She’s graceful, slender, well dressed in dark, sophisticated clothing that hugs her frame. But underneath the attractive exterior, there is a very human longing. Fanny and Gérard are happily married, but aren’t finding it easy to conceive a child.
The novel is structured as a series of almost independent short stories. The key story and linking linchpin is the story of Fanny and Gérard. Other stories include the tale of Luc and Julian, the story of Severine, Thierry and their two children, the story of Jean-Marie, the great philosophy professor, and his long suffering wife Sabine. All are love stories of a sort, involving a couple, children, and parents, and the relationships contained within these small family units. The progression of the novel happens as each of these stories is stretched to allow for the progression and change that time inevitably brings, but it all happens organically. The interweaving of the stories, where the protagonist of one becomes a minor character in another, is done with great deftness. We get to know the characters through a number of different perspectives that change, depending on whose story is being focused on. The perfect webs of these relationships are torn in tiny ways, and then reform to become something slightly different, and then that changes again. It’s a theme that Halligan uses to draw the novel together.
Luc runs the antiquarian bookstore that Fanny works in, and is involved in a loving relationship with Julian, who lives with him upstairs. Julian is a nurse, and his idea of what constitutes a strong relationship isn’t the same as Luc’s. Their story unfolds in parallel to the story of Fanny and Gérard, bisecting at odd moments. Fanny’s mother Cathérine is friends with Sabine, who is married to the wealthy and well-respected philosopher Jean-Marie, but his life, like Cathérine’s, isn’t exactly as it seems. There are indelicacies, allowances, and indulgencies that Jean-Marie demands, and Sabine plays her part with glamour and decorum as per the “rules”, but that’s not enough to keep down the demands of her heart. Accidents happen, and the rules are broken. Sabine changes. Jean-Marie changes. And Cathérine too changes as she delves into the secrets of her past, learning about the people she thought she knew and finding out about ones she didn’t in a way that links her with the past and reconciles her with the present.
Though the novel remains controlled and elegant throughout, never losing the grace hinted at by the title, there are mysteries that unfold in its progression, and there are pregnancies, both real and metaphoric, that gestate. Sometimes the gestation is quite a long one, and sometimes there are things that must be resolved first, before new life can come along. Cathérine and her daughter Fanny travel to the Véresac of Cathérine’s youth, to discover the history of Fanny’s grandfather Fleuret, who was a member of the Resistance during World War II and shot by the Germans when Cathérine was a young girl. The way in which Halligan maps the generations together, pairing and comparing mother and daughter is moving and satisfying. The stories may or may not end happily. In Valley of Grace, nothing is absolute. All happiness has an element of sadness, and all sadness has a positive edge. There is disappointment and there is satisfaction. Both are sides of the same coin. All stories meet up at some intersection. This is a novel full of grace, and it has many charms, quiet though they might be, for the reader. The depictions of both city and country France are rich and tender. So too, as Halligan fans would expect, are the sensual descriptions that fill this book, from Fanny and Gérard's love scenes, to the delicious pastries, chocolates, and regional dishes that the characters eat. Valley of Grace is a delightful genre-transcending book full of joy and sorrow. It’s easy to read and slow to digest: the perfect combination.
The novel is structured as a series of almost independent short stories. The key story and linking linchpin is the story of Fanny and Gérard. Other stories include the tale of Luc and Julian, the story of Severine, Thierry and their two children, the story of Jean-Marie, the great philosophy professor, and his long suffering wife Sabine. All are love stories of a sort, involving a couple, children, and parents, and the relationships contained within these small family units. The progression of the novel happens as each of these stories is stretched to allow for the progression and change that time inevitably brings, but it all happens organically. The interweaving of the stories, where the protagonist of one becomes a minor character in another, is done with great deftness. We get to know the characters through a number of different perspectives that change, depending on whose story is being focused on. The perfect webs of these relationships are torn in tiny ways, and then reform to become something slightly different, and then that changes again. It’s a theme that Halligan uses to draw the novel together.
Luc runs the antiquarian bookstore that Fanny works in, and is involved in a loving relationship with Julian, who lives with him upstairs. Julian is a nurse, and his idea of what constitutes a strong relationship isn’t the same as Luc’s. Their story unfolds in parallel to the story of Fanny and Gérard, bisecting at odd moments. Fanny’s mother Cathérine is friends with Sabine, who is married to the wealthy and well-respected philosopher Jean-Marie, but his life, like Cathérine’s, isn’t exactly as it seems. There are indelicacies, allowances, and indulgencies that Jean-Marie demands, and Sabine plays her part with glamour and decorum as per the “rules”, but that’s not enough to keep down the demands of her heart. Accidents happen, and the rules are broken. Sabine changes. Jean-Marie changes. And Cathérine too changes as she delves into the secrets of her past, learning about the people she thought she knew and finding out about ones she didn’t in a way that links her with the past and reconciles her with the present.
Though the novel remains controlled and elegant throughout, never losing the grace hinted at by the title, there are mysteries that unfold in its progression, and there are pregnancies, both real and metaphoric, that gestate. Sometimes the gestation is quite a long one, and sometimes there are things that must be resolved first, before new life can come along. Cathérine and her daughter Fanny travel to the Véresac of Cathérine’s youth, to discover the history of Fanny’s grandfather Fleuret, who was a member of the Resistance during World War II and shot by the Germans when Cathérine was a young girl. The way in which Halligan maps the generations together, pairing and comparing mother and daughter is moving and satisfying. The stories may or may not end happily. In Valley of Grace, nothing is absolute. All happiness has an element of sadness, and all sadness has a positive edge. There is disappointment and there is satisfaction. Both are sides of the same coin. All stories meet up at some intersection. This is a novel full of grace, and it has many charms, quiet though they might be, for the reader. The depictions of both city and country France are rich and tender. So too, as Halligan fans would expect, are the sensual descriptions that fill this book, from Fanny and Gérard's love scenes, to the delicious pastries, chocolates, and regional dishes that the characters eat. Valley of Grace is a delightful genre-transcending book full of joy and sorrow. It’s easy to read and slow to digest: the perfect combination.
March 7, 2017
A bit enigmatic, sometimes oddly eerie. I think a book you either like a lot or not at all. I'm still deciding if it is about children, families, the ties that bind or don't bind or something else entirely ... Made me want to visit and revisit the places described and evoked though, which is always a winner in my book.
May 7, 2024
Valley of Grace is set in Paris and is a sensitive and delightful exploration of relationships and experiences. I read this in one sitting and it gave me a great deal of pleasure - for its Parisian setting, its characters and its understated but effective writing style.
Re-read 2024
I decided to re-read some Marion Halligan after hearing of her recent death. She has always been a favourite Australian writer of mine. I love her story telling, her low key style and her humanity.
I didn't remember anything from my previous reading of this novel except that it was set in Paris, where Halligan had lived and which she knew well.
What surprised me (and does even more so when I see my review above was the inclusion of the 'wild child' - a girl whose mother had died at birth and whose grandparents, ashamed of their daughter, had kept the girl chained in the attic of their home all her young life. How could I forget this searing aspect?
The novel is all about children - the longing for them, the shame (for some) of having them and the responsibility that parents do (or should) take for them. It is also a novel about love - love between men and women, men and men, women and women, parents and children and those who choose to care for a child that is not their own. There is a particularly unpleasant character who is a famous philosopher - he knows nothing about love except in theory and nothing at all about children.
The title says it all really. It is the name of an actual church in the Paris neighbourhood where the novel is set but its broader meaning of mercy and kindness is one that shines through the novel, in spite of its dark moments.
Vale Marion Halligan - I thank her for her memorable contributions to Australian literature. There are a number of her novels and short stories on my shelves so there will be more re-reading to come.
Re-read 2024
I decided to re-read some Marion Halligan after hearing of her recent death. She has always been a favourite Australian writer of mine. I love her story telling, her low key style and her humanity.
I didn't remember anything from my previous reading of this novel except that it was set in Paris, where Halligan had lived and which she knew well.
What surprised me (and does even more so when I see my review above was the inclusion of the 'wild child' - a girl whose mother had died at birth and whose grandparents, ashamed of their daughter, had kept the girl chained in the attic of their home all her young life. How could I forget this searing aspect?
The novel is all about children - the longing for them, the shame (for some) of having them and the responsibility that parents do (or should) take for them. It is also a novel about love - love between men and women, men and men, women and women, parents and children and those who choose to care for a child that is not their own. There is a particularly unpleasant character who is a famous philosopher - he knows nothing about love except in theory and nothing at all about children.
The title says it all really. It is the name of an actual church in the Paris neighbourhood where the novel is set but its broader meaning of mercy and kindness is one that shines through the novel, in spite of its dark moments.
Vale Marion Halligan - I thank her for her memorable contributions to Australian literature. There are a number of her novels and short stories on my shelves so there will be more re-reading to come.
June 9, 2010
I admire Marion Halligan's work (after participating in a writing class she conducted) and have been meaning to read her earlier novels but never got around to it. Here finally she returns to what she is wonderful at – literary fiction. I just can’t get over Valley of Grace. It feels like Halligan has been living in Paris and parts of France for most of her life. The tone is so authentic, the landscape and buildings beautifully evoked and I love the way the stories and the people interlink. I was so sorry when the novel ended. I’m hoping she will keep writing in this vein now because I will definitely be watching out for her next book. Would love to hear from other readers who have read her much earlier novels.
March 1, 2009
I was recommended this by a bookseller. It is so elegant and quite beautifully written but I did find it a little slow at times. Nevertheless, I am glad I read it and will surely read more of her writing in the near future.
August 29, 2014
This book gives the reader charming little postcards from Paris - snippets of the lives of related families with flashbacks to how German occupation affected their familes. A central theme is babies, having them and not having them and the joys and tragedies that unfold.
July 30, 2015
Don't read this if you want to fall pregnant. It will break your heart and give you hope and make you believe that moving to the French countryside is the only solution.
A gorgeous study of myriad intersecting lives, lived beautifully and well in Paris and its immediate surrounds.
A gorgeous study of myriad intersecting lives, lived beautifully and well in Paris and its immediate surrounds.
April 6, 2016
I wasn't sue to begin with. And then I fell in love with the gentle, poetic story telling. For a modern story it feels seet in the past. Not an i-phone or a digital disruption to this lyrical set of interlinked stories.
June 16, 2015
A mixed bag ..... Parts were enthrallingly while some chapters went off on a tangent .
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews