CONVERSATIONS WITH MY GARDENER

After the death of his mother, a Parisian landscape painter (Auteuil) returns to claim the ramshackle country house he grew up in. Noticing the houses’ once-impressive vegetable garden has fallen into neglect, he hires a local gardener (Darroussin) to knock it back into shape. To their surprise, the two men discover they were once childhood buddies whose lives took very different paths after they were expelled from junior school for a prank.

While the vegetable garden grows, they rekindle their friendship, discussing all nature of topics, from the painter’s dissolving marriage to the relative merits of lettuce, and take to calling each other nicknames - “Dauber” for the painter & “Gardener” for the other.

Wry humour permeates every conversation between the two men, and when the artist occasionally visits Paris to meet with his hot young mistress, the pretentiousness of the art world is cause for additional sly commentary. But as summer inevitably turns to autumn and the Dauber’s garden begins to bear fruit, so too does their friendship face the sad trials of growing old.

Adapted from the memoirs of artist Henri Cueco, Conversations is a warm and engaging celebration of the bonds of friendship and the enduring pleasures of a good yarn.

Estimated despatch 14-20 days after ordering.