Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin is a contemporary literary mystery novel first published in 2018 in French under the title Changer l’eau des fleurs. It was translated into English in 2020 by Hildegarde Serle, but the translation retains certain French phrases where appropriate and explores the use of tu and vous (respectively, the singular/informal and plural/formal words for “you”) in conversation. The English translation was a Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Summer pick in 2021 and an Indies Introduce and Indies Next list pick in 2020. In 2022, the English translation was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award.

This study guide corresponds to the Europa Editions 2022 paperback English translation.

Content Warning: This novel depicts graphic sexual assault, death by suicide, substance use disorder, and the loss of a child.

Plot Summary

Fresh Water for Flowers is a nonlinear narrative with several intertwining timelines. For clarity, the plot summary below details the overall story arc and does not directly follow the construction of the book.

Violette Trenet meets Philippe Toussaint while she is working as an underage bartender. They become involved and, though Philippe is very controlling, Violette bends to his wishes out of a traumatic need to be loved. They find work and lodgings together as level-crossing keepers, raising and lowering the road barrier between trains, though it is Violette who does all the work. Later she gives birth to a daughter, Léonine. Shortly afterward, Violette and Philippe are married at Philippe’s parents’ insistence. When Léonine is seven, Philippe’s parents take her away for a holiday with three other children of family friends. They stay at a hotel, and while they’re asleep, there is a fire. None of the four children survive.

Violette is devastated, and Philippe is angry. After staying away from Léonine’s funeral, Violette goes to the cemetery where she is buried. There, she meets Sasha, the keeper of the cemetery, and they become close friends. Meanwhile, Philippe does not believe the official report of the hotel fire, which states that it was started by the children leaving an oven burner on at night. He sets out to learn what happened. After the train barriers become automated, Violette and Philippe lose their positions as crossing keepers. Knowing that Sasha is looking to retire, Violette secures them a new post as keepers of the cemetery.

Violette adapts better than Philippe to cemetery life, finding a new purpose and community there. Philippe begins leaving for longer and longer periods as he tries to find out what happened at the hotel. He learns that the fire was set as a cover-up for the hotel’s poor safety standards and that the true cause of the children’s deaths was a faulty water heater that released carbon monoxide gas. However, he doesn’t yet know who turned on the water heater and whether or not it was done intentionally. After speaking to everyone who was working at the hotel that fateful night, he discovers that his parents went to visit the children in their shared room. Not knowing how dangerous the water heater was, his father turned it on. Unable to face Violette knowing his parents were responsible for their daughter’s death, Philippe leaves for good.

Violette learns that Philippe had an affair with one of the hotel staff and believes that the children were murdered in revenge for something he did. She falls into a dark depression, and Sasha returns to help her heal. Years later, Violette meets someone new: Julien Seul, a police chief bringing his late mother’s ashes to another man’s grave. He combs through his mother’s diaries to understand her connection to this man who wasn’t his father and learns that they were star-crossed lovers. Julien and Violette grow closer, though Violette is cautious about loving again. Julien is also able to locate the missing Philippe. Violette writes to him requesting an amicable divorce so that she may regain use of her maiden name.

Philippe has shed his old name and been living as a new man beside the woman he loves. He is enraged at the reminder of his past and goes to see Violette, threatening her to leave him in peace. On his way out, he becomes overwhelmed with memories and decides he needs to be a better father to Léonine. He takes off on his motorcycle and deliberately crashes, dying instantly. After his death, the woman he’d been living with goes to Violette and tells her the truth about why Philippe left her and what happened to the children at the hotel. Knowing the truth about why her two loves were taken from her allows Violette to find peace and begin a new life with Julien.