Blackberry Vodka for a Broken Heart

Everyone experiences breakups differently. Genevieve, whom a man of her dreams left, cries on the couch, hugging cats, and empties glass after glass. Maybe bitter tears and bitter drinks are precisely what heals a wounded heart? But soon Genevieve learns there are other medicines: belief in herself and a passionate romance with a wonderful stranger.

Raphael Gervmain is not called the French-speaking Helen Fielding for nothing. Her novel’s heroes get into ridiculous situations, aren’t afraid to laugh at themselves, and desperately believe in true love.

Things were bad. There was no juice left in the fridge, all the oranges had long since been squeezed, and through the large windows of my apartment I watched a snow blizzard that completely mirrored my inner state. There was no question of going out. That, in fact, had been going on for almost ten days—since Florian announced to me that he was leaving for another woman. He left the apartment—his apartment, where I had lived with him for four years—saying he wasn’t going to pressure me and I could stay as long as I wanted. A nice guy.

But the juice was gone, and I needed something to dilute the leftover vodka in a bottle that Catherine, a kind soul, brought me four days ago—and over those days I’d almost emptied it myself, pitying myself and drowning my sorrow in it. I had a brilliant idea: to mix vodka with the remaining blackberry sorbet (blackberry vodka!), something that had been languishing in the freezer for ages. “Sorbet is frozen juice, right?” I told myself in a tender moment of self-justification. But the sorbet—left in the freezer for who-knows how long and in a not-very-hermetic package—acquired a strong persistent aftertaste, definitely from the package of shrimp sitting nearby. My blackberry-and-shrimp cocktail wiped away my tears, but I drank it conscientiously, like a sick child drinks cough syrup. Yes, my situation was really, truly bad.