Rousseau's Lost Children

Electronic book text

Paris, 2022. Gavin, a middle-aged academic, has left his boyfriend Pedro behind in Ireland so he can concentrate on finishing his long-delayed book on Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As a young queer man, he was inspired by the philosopher's ideas of social truth and equality, but a traumatic event has given him writer's block. As Gavin begins his residency at an Irish seminary on the Left Bank, he avoids work on his book by writing emails and letters - letters that reveal hidden motives for coming to Paris. Letters about his reluctance to have children with Pedro. Letters to Cyprien Abreu, a Sorbonne professor of the Enlightenment with whom Gavin is obsessed. And letters to Jean-Jacques Rousseau asking whether the great man will take walks with him so that Gavin can question him about human nature.

Paris, 1777. Jean-Jacques Rousseau replies to Gavin's letters and agrees to meet him for walks, despite his preference for solitude. He is nearing his death and is eager to give an honest account of his life. But as Gavin and Jean-Jacques wander the crowded streets of eighteenth-century Paris, visiting beggars and aristocrats, and discussing Rousseau's relationships with women and children, it becomes clear that Gavin doesn't just want to interrogate Rousseau about the flaws in his arguments. He wants to understand his own false reasoning. Can talking and walking with Jean-Jacques lead Gavin to truth and atonement, to honesty with Pedro, and to an understanding of what love, society and family really mean to him?