“Happiness asks to move along with life, it requires that perfect circles be broken.” So ends Pascale Quiviger’s first novel, The Perfect Circle. Marianne, Quiviger’s main character, takes a chance on love, aspiring to insinuate herself into another’s circle – no easy task, as she finds out.

Marianne, on vacation in a small Italian village, meets Marco and falls in love. She returns to her native Montreal, but when Marco calls and invites her to come live with him, she abandons family, friends, and possessions to return to Italy. Residing in a small village on a lake, in a house previously abandoned by Marco’s family, with just a bed and a large table, Marianne comes to know the real Marco. Never married, he has an established, solitary life with its own rhythms. He works as a plumber earning just enough income to survive. Marco exists in a self-contained circle with his dogs, his hunting, the relatives in his village, and the natural beauty of his surroundings. His widowed mother cooks his meals, does his laundry, and is not about to let him go.

Quiviger uses a combination of Marianne’s writings and third-person narration to paint vivid, engaging, and endearing portraits of the characters and of village life. Marianne’s attempt to settle her rivalry with Marco’s mother using a fish casserole and French toast is very funny. Through Marianne, we learn that all her efforts to achieve a greater intensity in her relationship with Marco have failed, but while in Italy, Marianne develops the strength and self-knowledge to return home and carry on with her life.

Le cercle parfait, the novel’s original French edition, deservedly won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in 2004. Quiviger’s prose will seduce the romantic with its many charms, while satisfying the realist with its challenging portrayal of a modern relationship that attempts to bridge two cultures, two languages, and two independent personalities.