Rousseau’s Lost Children

'Inventive, intimate, often devastating . . . packs a heavy emotional punch, producing a deeply affecting account of power and connection and its ability to entrap us, even in love' Irish Times

'Smart, formally playful, and psychologically astute, Rousseau's Lost Children is a novel of ideas with moral insight and real emotional power' Ferdia Lennon, author of Glorious Exploits

Paris, 1777. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau receives a mysterious letter from a foreign visitor, Gavin Mulvany, asking whether the great man will take walks with him. Against his better judgement, Rousseau agrees. Might this stranger, who claims to be from the twenty-first century, be the true friend that Rousseau has been searching for his whole life?

Paris, 2022. Gavin, a middle-aged academic, leaves his husband behind in Ireland to finish a long-delayed biography of Rousseau. While in Paris, he avoids work on his book by instead taking walks with Rousseau himself. As they wander the streets, Gavin and Rousseau open up about certain past actions that have come to define them. Was Rousseau justified in abandoning his children? Should Gavin be forgiven for the terrible crime he committed to protect a man he once loved? Can talking and walking together lead both Gavin and Rousseau to finally be honest with themselves and their loved ones, and to a better understanding of what love, family, and society really mean?

Rousseau's Lost Children is a thrilling epistolary novel cast across centuries, a bold and illuminating investigation into the boundaries of personal liberty and matters of morality, desire and loyalty.