– Life has totally changed – VG

Less than 20 minutes ago

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– Yes, that’s completely true. It could be a novel, laughs Valérie Perrin who met the renowned film director Claude Lelouch when she was 39 years old and he 69 years old.

She had written a side story about his films in connection with an interview a journalist friend did with Lelouch for a magazine when a place in Deauville was to be named after the film director – who has won the Oscar and the Palme d’Or at Cannes for the film “A Man and a Woman” (1966).

– He read what I wrote about his films, and enjoyed it. Then one day he called me.

Now she is 55, he is 84 years old. She has two children from a previous relationship, he has five marriages behind him and a total of seven children. The couple lives together in a house on top of Montmartre in Paris.

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– Basically, you can not imagine having a love story with someone who is so much older. When I met him I was 39, and he was 69 years old – and I thought: It’s not possible. But very quickly I realized that age does not matter at all.

– Some may be old in the head when they are 20 years old, others may be young when they are old – such as my husband. He is very young to be 84 years old. He creates, is present in life and has a youthfulness as a 14-year-old. Physically, he is much stronger than me. I do not know how he does it.

– He actually makes me think of Asterix who has this power in himself even though he is small. I do not feel at all that I am with someone who is much older, says Perrin.

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VG talks to her via an interpreter during her first visit to Norway in connection with the book “Watering flowers in the evening” which has taken Norwegian readers by storm.

The novel is the book that has sold by far the most so far this year, in fact twice as much as the next book on the list. The circulation has rounded 60,000 copies.

– This is an unparalleled sales adventure. Valerié Perrin has even sold better than Lucinda Riley used to do, and she is the decade’s best-selling translated author, says marketing director Knut Gørvell in Cappelen Damm.

Read VG’s review of the book here: A delicious book!

The book was also the best-selling book of the year in Italy in 2020, in its home country France it has sold over one million copies – and it is now published in 30 countries.

– I am just as moved every time I go to the top in a new country, and what moves me the most are book signings where there is a queue of people who want to meet me. It’s on me! My life has completely changed since the book was published in 2019, says Valérie Perrin.

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From being a relatively unknown author, she is now a writer who has more travel days than home days – and who has just bought a villa in Burgundy.

– Now I know that I can probably live the rest of my life as a writer, the profession I see as the most beautiful. There’s something magical about it: I’m writing this book inside my four walls, in my little house. It’s like having a secret – and suddenly everyone is talking about it.

– It is a miracle and an adventure, says Perrin.

In the book, we meet Violette who is a graveyard keeper in a small village in Burgundy – where the author himself also grew up.

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Violet waters flowers and cares for all the graves – and is good at comforting. She also carries a great deal of grief herself, and Valérie Perrin says that she gets a lot of feedback from people who believe the book and the life the main character Violette lives, has helped them overcome a grief.

– It’s about living a simple life, tinkering with the garden, feeding the cats, enjoying a cup of tea, some port wine or a scent. It is a counterpart to mass consumption and high demands, says Perrin, who is himself concerned with the small things in life.

– Now I’m not Violette, and she’s not me. But also for me, it is the small everyday things that make up life itself: Get a hug, taste a good pasta or the scent of a perfume. It’s not just about having more, getting more.

– I hope to be able to pass this on to my readers, says Perrin.

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The idea for the novel “Watering flowers in the evening” came to her completely out of the blue.

– I was standing by the grave of my husband’s parents in a small cemetery in Normandy. Suddenly it just struck me: Is there such a thing as cemetery guards? That’s how I got the idea for Violette. She appeared – simply with the glass of port wine in her hand.

Little by little, she unearthed the characters and stories in the book that are now making readers all over the world cry.

– I also cried myself while writing, she says and takes the last sip of her Norwegian espresso.

– I cried over the dark and sad, but at the same time I felt an enormous joy over opening the computer every morning and meeting Violette where she lives.

Now we will soon see Violette on the TV screen on one of the largest streaming services. Perrin can not reveal too much, but says that a well-known French screenwriter is in the process of becoming a French-Italian TV series production.

– It’s not my husband, that is, but I can not tell more now. There will also be a French actress in the lead role as Violette.

Psst! Next year, her book “Trois” will be published in Norwegian.

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