About The Paper Palace book

Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, wakes up on a beautiful August morning at «The Paper Palace,» the family vacation retreat she has spent every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night, Elle and her oldest friend Jonas snuck out the back door into the darkness and had their first sex with each other, all while their spouses chattered inside.

Elle must now choose between the life she has built with her really loving husband, Peter, and the life she always believed she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas if a tragic tragedy hadn’t irreversibly changed the trajectory of their lives.

We arrive at Elle’s final decision with all its complexities as Heller paints in the experiences that have led her to this point. The Paper Palace examines the contradictions between desire and dignity, the legacy of abuse, and family crimes and misdemeanors in a tender yet terrible way.

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