When Hélène’s father dies, she discovers a photo amongst his papers, a photo she has never seen before. It shows her mother, the mother she lost when she was 3, looking young and so happy standing between two men Hélène doesn’t recognise. The only clue is that the photo was taken in Interlaken. So she sends a copy to the local newspaper, hoping that a reader might recognise someone in the picture. She gets a reply from Stéphane, who does indeed know who the men are. One of them is his father.
What follows is the gradual unfolding of a mystery, the discovery of a past that both Hélène and Stéphane have had hidden from them all their lives. Through letters, emails, texts and phone calls, the two embark on a sometimes painful journey to discover the truth about their parents.
This is a charming and gentle novel about memory, acceptance and forgiveness. As the two rummage through their family archives and patiently follow the clues, they are increasingly drawn together, and as the novel progresses so too is the reader drawn into the developing tale.
The epistolary structure works to great effect, making it impossible to break off reading. Each letter or email provokes an answer which compels the reader to discover what is said or discovered next, making the book a real page-turner. When other photographs are discovered they are so vividly described that you can almost see them as if you were looking at them. Descriptions of French bourgeois life at the time Hélène and Stéphane’s parents knew each other is equally vividly evoked, that time when family and societal pressure could sometimes have devastating consequences. Beautifully and lyrically written, but never sentimental or overly romantic, this is a heart-warming book and Gallic are to be applauded on bringing yet another excellent French novel to an English-speaking audience.

A beautifully written poignant and moving story of parental secrets of the past..

The story starts with Hélène who doesn't remember her mother as she died when she was an infant. She finds a picture of her mother as a very young woman, at a tennis tournament with two young men she did not recognise at all. Hélène places an advertisement, asking for more information about the people in the photo.

Stéphane responds as he recognises one of the young men is his father and so the story unfolds via the correspondence between Stéphane and Hélène.

The book reminded me a little bit of 84 Charing Cross Road in utilising a series of letter, e-mails and postcards as the main narrative. This works particularly well as you gain insight into the feelings, thoughts and personalities of Helene and Stéphane more so than a more traditional narrative.

I particularly enjoyed the exquisite and detailed descriptions of the various photos in the story that brought the unseen fictional images to a sharp clarity.

An enchanting, moving and enjoyable read written in the most beautiful prose.

I could not put this book down. It really has it all...multidimensional characters, a compelling plot, intelligent treatment of such issues of duty, love, retribution, and loneliness. Special kudos to the translator.

When Helene discovers an old photo of her mother, who died when she was 3, she advertises asking for information about the two men in the picture to try and learn more about her mother's life. She receives a reply from Stephane in Switzerland who says that one of the men is his father and they start corresponding.

Gradually between them they start to piece together the story which is both fascinating and heartbreaking but can they move on from it.

A well written interesting story that I thoroughly enjoyed

I read The People In The Photo in one sitting: it was that much of a page turner. I really wanted to know what happened to Helene, a Parisian archivist, and Stephane, a Swiss biologist living in England, who were trying to find out what the connection between their parents was, as well as the mystery that surrounded the death of Helene's mother when she was a young child.

While Helene was growing up neither her father nor her stepmother would answer questions about her mother and Helene has no memory of her. Now that her father has also died she is determined to find out more about the people in the photograph, her mother with two unidentified men, that she finds hidden in his papers.

After Stephane answers her newspaper advertisement showing the photograph and asking for information they begin a correspondence by letter and email. Stephane recognises one of the men as his father and the other as a close family friend. He agrees to go through his father's archive of photographs to find out more. And so they begin a journey that leads to both the discovery of family secrets as well as new knowledge of themselves.

The story is told in the present and in flashback and flows well. The descriptions of the photographs are excellent and I could imagine the image in front of me just as Helene and Stephane would have seen them.

Although the ending didn't surprise me it also didn't disappoint.The People In The Photo is beautifully written and translated and I enjoyed it very much. I am not surprised it has won many awards in France.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Gallic Books for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Told through letters, postcard, emails and diary entries this is a fascinating story of two people, who may or may not be related (you find out in the final chapters), discovery the lies, intrigue and cover ups done to protect them from their families past.

Slow to start with, the pace picks up as more is revealed about the past and the relationships in the family and with friends, reaching an intriguing conclusion, and one that is not clear until it is almost the end of the story.

The "love affair" between the two present day characters is a bit of a distraction, and the only down side to a great story.

I thoroughly loved this story.

Charming. A true page-turner.

Helene Gestern writes this novel in a wonderfully original style. Letters and emails passed between two people trying to find out about their parents and the past. It is intriguing and engaging. Beautifully done - touching.

I do love books that use the epistolary form to tell a story which is all about pictures from the past. Hélène Hivert is an archivist, as a girl she was bought up by her father and her step-mother, her own having died when she was a young girl. On her father’s death she comes across a photo of Nathalie, her mother, a woman who was rarely mentioned given that any of the young Hélène’s questions were met with silence and stormy reactions. The photo shows her mother in Interlaken in 1971 at a tennis match and stood between two unknown men. Wanting to know more she places an advert in the paper and receives a response from Stéphane who recognises both men, one of whom is his father, Pierre.

From here on the pair compare childhoods and their relationships with their parents and discover parallels but what they want to know is how their respective parents came to be in Interlaken. With the aid of photos, diaries and other documents this is a tale of how they learnt more and what the story behind the photo was. But, this isn’t a plot driven novel, it is one about less than perfect relationships of all different kinds. It is a story of choices and consequences and living with the results.

If you wondered whether this is based on a true story, it wasn’t, despite the protagonist sharing the first name as the author. If there was any doubt, the correspondence between Hélène and Stéphane describes their journey which it could be said is fairly straightforward with discoveries made with relative ease and the pieces of their personal puzzle slotting together in a way that felt a little too smooth to be realistic. The author tries to maintain the tension with delaying tactics that became a little repetitive; it goes without saying that anyone who knew their parents are incapacitated in a variety of ways that stops them revealing what they know. Fair enough the story is set more than forty years ago, but to then add too many instances where the owner of a pertinent piece of information writes to the other to say they can’t read it yet, it’s too emotional, or that they left it behind when making a trip simply didn’t ring true. Those small criticisms don’t detract from what is overall a well-plotted, touching and moving story.

Those of you like me who have far too many books on their shelves may be swayed by the fact that this is a shortish book coming in at only 270 pages which makes it an ideal story to fit into a busy reading schedule,. Its relatively brevity doesn’t short-change the reader, in fact its impact is far greater than some books twice this length with its deceptively light touch examining relationships and giving the reader a cast of characters that won’t easily be forgotten.

I can’t leave this review without praising the work of the two translators; Emily Boyce and Emily Boyce who were so good that I completely forgot that this book was originally written in French, where incidentally this debut novel won a slew of prizes.

I’d like to say a big thank you to Gallic books for giving me a copy of The People in the Photo, this review is my thank you to them.

loved the epistolary nature of the story, the emails/cards back and forth between the two characters. I do wish there had been some photos - I kept hoping I had something to refer to visually whenever either Helene or Stephane mentioned a detail or two.

But anyone who has ever found an album of photos and wondered "what if?" or imagines a backstory to images of strangers will find a lot to like in this book. It makes me want to sit down with my aging parents and take notes!

The translation is quite good and flows well.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review.

Thank you Net Galley. A wonderful book about, identity and memory; and also permanence. The use of an old photograph as a starting point to explore the protagonist's sense of self and identity is beautiful and thought provoking. The rise of electronic media has meant that many things are more permanent and harder to destroy but it has also increased the impermanence of memories as sometimes you have no physical record. I enjoyed the structure of the book. It enhanced my pleasure in the book. Highly recommended.