An engrossing set of stories all centred round the park bench; children carve "I love you" on it; a tramp sleeps on it; older women gossip and argue (and eye up the passers-by!)... How will these storylines play out? Some stories interact but most don't, and it makes reading a delight but also a challenge. Does everything come to a neat conclusion? No: the park bench stands as a fixed point as lives of the people who use it come and go - but there is a crisis when the tramp is prevented from sleeping there by a new bench designed to stop him stretching out, and then what happens to the bench we have seen through?
Read it and find out; re-read to see all the different lives play out, friendships made and lost...
I loved it and will be seeking out more by Chabouté: what craft there is in this wordless storytelling!