The Truth about Marie

Moving through a variety of locales and adventures, The Truth about Marie revisits the unnamed narrator of Toussaint’s acclaimed Running Away, reporting on
his now disintegrated relationship with the titular Marie—the story switching
deftly between first- and third-person as the narrator continues to drift through
life, and Marie does her best to get on with hers. Like all of Toussaint’s novels,
The Truth about Marie’s plot matters far less than its pace and tempo, its chain
of images, its sequence of events. From pouring rain in Paris to blazing fires on
the island of Elba, from moments of intense action to perfectly paced lulls, The
Truth about Marie relies on a series of contrasts to tell a beguiling, and finally
touching, story of intimacy forever being regained and lost.