«Get Well Soon» by Marie-Sabine Roger

A joyful novel full of humanity from the author of Soft in the Head
After falling into the Seine and winding up in hospital, ageing widower Jeanne-Pierre begins writing his memoirs. But if he was hoping for a peaceful convalescence, he's out of luck. A stream of unforeseen acquaintances seem determined to disturb his solitude: the sulky teenage girl who loiters in his room, the impoverished student who saved his life, the investigating detective who can't seem to keep away, the nurses who remain mostly resistant to his charms…
As his health gradually improves, Jean-Pierre must face a terrifying thought: not only is the world perhaps a little better than he'd imagined – it's possible that he is, too.
Born in Bordeaux in 1957, Marie-Sabine Roger has been writing books for both adults and children since 1989. Soft in the Head was made into a 2010 film, My Afternoons with Margueritte, directed by Jean Becker, starring Gérard Depardieu. Get Well Soon won the Prix des lecteurs de l'Express in 2012.
Frank Wynne is an award-winning translator from French and Spanish. He has won the IMPAC Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Scott Moncrieff Prize. He has translated a number of Spanish and Latin American authors, including Tomás Eloy Martínez, Isabel Allende, Arturo Pérez-Reverte and Tomás Gonzalez, whose In the Beginning Was the Sea is published by Pushkin Press.