The Red Notebook

Set in contemporary Paris, the story opens late at night when Laure Valadier is mugged outside her apartment building. A man grabs her bag strap, and when she resists, he shoves her head into the metal door frame. The thief runs off with her keys, phone, and wallet. Locked out of her fifth-floor apartment, Laure crosses the street to the Hôtel Paris Bellevue, where the night porter lets her stay on trust. From the hotel window, she can see her own living room, where her black cat, Belphégor, stares back at her.

The next morning, Laurent Letellier, the owner of a bookshop called Le Cahier Rouge, notices a mauve leather handbag on top of a rubbish bin during his morning walk. He takes it to the police station, but a long wait discourages him and he brings the bag home instead. Meanwhile, when Laure fails to check out of the hotel by midday, a staff member finds her unconscious with dried blood beneath her head. She is taken to the hospital in a coma.

That evening, Laurent opens the bag, treating the act as a forbidden transgression. Its contents include a bottle of Habanita perfume, keys on a fob covered in hieroglyphics, a diary, a Montblanc pen, old photographs, and a phone charger, though neither phone nor wallet remain. Most significantly, he discovers a red Moleskine notebook filled with the owner's private thoughts and a copy of Patrick Modiano's novel Accident Nocturne bearing a handwritten dedication: "For Laure, in memory of our meeting in the rain. Patrick Modiano" (32). He now has her first name.

Laurent's girlfriend, Dominique, an economics editor, arrives that night and detects the lingering scent of perfume. She discovers a hairgrip from the bag on the carpet, refuses to believe no woman has been in the apartment, and leaves.

Laurent's fifteen-year-old daughter, Chloé, who lives with her mother Claire and Claire's partner Bertrand, a food photographer, proves a keen detective when Laurent shows her the bag's contents. She deduces the owner is probably in her forties and challenges Laurent to track down Patrick Modiano, since the novelist is the only person known to have seen Laure.

Through a fellow bookseller, Laurent learns that Modiano is sometimes seen in the Luxembourg Gardens. After two mornings of watching, he spots the author, approaches with a copy of Accident Nocturne, and explains his search. Modiano initially claims he cannot remember, then provides a remarkably detailed description: shoulder-length brown hair, pale complexion, very light eyes, a beauty spot to the right of her upper lip, and red lipstick tending to coral. Laurent also visits six dry-cleaners and retrieves Laure's white strappy dress using a receipt found in the bag, but the staff cannot identify the customer. He has a first name and a description but no surname.

While Laurent searches, Laure lies in a coma, drifting through vivid dreams of childhood summers at her parents' home and her late husband, Xavier Valadier, a photojournalist killed in Iraq. She hears the voice of William, her closest friend and colleague at the Ateliers Gardhier, a gilding workshop where craftspeople apply gold leaf to monuments and architectural features. William had discovered her absence when she failed to appear at work, tracked her to the hospital, and now visits daily, though she cannot respond.

At a dinner with Dominique, Laurent spends the evening mentally conjuring Laure's image in an empty chair. Dominique tells him they are drifting apart and instructs him never to call again.

The crucial breakthrough comes during a book-signing at Le Cahier Rouge. A visiting author named Frédéric Pichier, who learned to read Egyptian hieroglyphics while researching his novel, reads the inscription on the key fob aloud: "Laure … Va … Vala … Valadier" (79). Laurent now has a full name.

He finds Laure's phone number in the directory and calls repeatedly without success. He writes a letter and goes to deliver it in person, ringing the bell at her fifth-floor apartment. William answers the door, and Belphégor immediately greets Laurent, rubbing against his hand. William assumes Laurent is Laure's new boyfriend, and Laurent does not correct the assumption. William reveals that Laure was mugged and is in a coma, and mentions he must leave for Berlin with no one to feed the cat. Laurent volunteers.

Over two evenings in Laure's apartment, Laurent immerses himself in her world. He examines a family photo album and framed photographs showing Laure beside gilded monuments, and understands that she is a gilder. He discovers a first edition of Sophie Calle's Suite Vénitienne, a work about following strangers that mirrors his own quest. A dream sequence reveals Laurent's own past: While working as a wealth adviser at La Défense, Paris's business district, he once stood on a high terrace and considered climbing over the railing. He stepped back, told Claire he would open a bookshop, and began a new life.

Laure gradually wakes from her coma, but when William mentions that a man named Laurent looked after Belphégor, she has no memory of any bookseller by that name. Her doctor, Professor Baulieu, insists this is not amnesia.

Laurent enters her apartment one last time, placing the bag, the dress, and a farewell letter on her bed. His letter quotes Modiano's Villa Triste about mysterious beings who watch over us at crossroads in our lives and states that he has given up on meeting her.

When Laure comes home, she finds the bag and is reunited with every item she believed lost: her grandmother's compact mirror, Xavier's pen, the photographs, and the red notebook. She reads Laurent's letter and asks William to tell her everything. He confesses that Laurent was a stranger who found the bag and whom William let into the apartment.

Laure begins writing in her notebook again, fascinated by the stranger who now knows more about her inner life than any of her lovers ever did. She searches twelve local bookshops for a bookseller named Laurent but finds no match. She even enters Le Cahier Rouge, but Laurent is not on the shop floor that day.

Chloé independently tracks Laure down by bringing a picture frame to the Ateliers Gardhier for regilding. In the studio, she identifies Laure by her light-colored eyes, beauty spot, blue flower hair clip, and the scent of Habanita. Without hesitation, Chloé tells her: "His name is Laurent Letellier. He's the owner of Le Cahier Rouge" (148). The gold leaf falls from Laure's hand.

Over the following days, Laure documents her cautious approach in a diary. She observes Laurent's bookshop from a bench and follows him to a café, watching him read. On Wednesday, February 19, she enters Le Cahier Rouge after closing time and finds Laurent alone on a ladder. She tells him she is looking for a book about a bookseller who finds a handbag, searches for its owner, and then runs away like an idiot. Laurent freezes, turns slowly, and replies that they do not have that book, that it has not been written yet. Laure looks up at him and says, "Hello, Laurent" (157).

The novel closes with simultaneous vignettes set 48 hours later. The first sentence Laure writes in a new red Moleskine is: "I like kissing Laurent" (158). Their first kiss takes place at the foot of her building, in the exact spot where she was mugged five weeks earlier. Elsewhere, Chloé chats online with a boy who shares her love of poetry; Pichier begins a new novel that will win the Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize; William waits at a café for a past lover; and Modiano spends half an hour deciding whether to place a comma in the last line of his new novel. As Laurent and Laure fall onto the bed together, Modiano decides not to add the comma.