A Retired French Teacher, a Small Book, and a Lesson in Typography

A few weeks ago, a retired French teacher walked into my small shop in Montreal. At first, she was simply another customer. We chatted a little, as I often do with the people who come through the door. Eventually, she became interested in one of my books, a short French novella titled La lettre et le silence.

To be honest, I felt a little embarrassed selling it to her.

The book is only thirty-six pages long. Compared with the hundreds of pages of many novels, it felt almost fragile. I wondered what a retired French teacher would think of a French text written by someone whose first language is Chinese.

She bought it anyway.

Some time later, she came back.

She had finished the entire book.

What surprised me most was not that she had read it, but how she spoke about it. She did not begin by pointing out grammar mistakes. She did not lecture me about vocabulary or sentence structures. Instead, she told me that she would give my French a high score.

For a writer working in a second language, that was already an encouraging compliment.

Then she offered a suggestion.

She had noticed that, in some places, words were broken across lines. She explained that, whenever possible, it is preferable not to split a word. If there is not enough room at the end of a line, it is often better to move the entire word to the next line.

It was not a criticism of the story itself. It was a comment about typography and reading comfort.

I explained that the book had been formatted using Kindle Create and that much of the line breaking was generated automatically by Amazon's publishing system. She understood immediately and accepted the explanation.

Her comment, however, stayed with me.

After our conversation, I opened some of my other books and started checking them. To my surprise, I found the same issue in several titles. Even though Microsoft Word was already configured with hyphenation turned off, Kindle's formatting engine still introduced line breaks inside certain French words.

For a while, I considered whether I should go back and rebuild everything.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was not really a language problem. It was a publishing problem.

There is a difference between being told that your French is weak and being told that your typography could be improved. The first concerns the writing itself. The second concerns the presentation of the writing.

That distinction meant a great deal to me.

As we continued talking, she recommended a film that had reminded her of my book: The Birdcatcher. The connection was not necessarily in the plot but in the themes of silence, identity, and what remains unsaid. I found the comparison thoughtful and generous.

Before she left, I made her a promise.

I told her that I would send her a copy of Nous ne sommes pas dispersés, a much longer novel that grew out of and expanded upon many of the ideas first explored in La lettre et le silence.

If La lettre et le silence is a seed, then Nous ne sommes pas dispersés is the tree that grew from it.

The short novella is only thirty-six pages. The novel is more than two hundred pages long. The characters, emotions, and questions that appeared briefly in the first work have been expanded, developed, and allowed to breathe.

Looking back, I realize that our conversation was about more than typography.

A retired French teacher bought a small book written by an immigrant shop owner. She read it carefully. She encouraged the writer. She pointed out a detail that could be improved. She recommended a film. And she agreed to read the larger work that followed.

In a world increasingly dominated by algorithms, instant opinions, and scrolling screens, such encounters feel rare.

A good reader does not simply consume a book.

A good reader enters into a conversation with it.

Sometimes that conversation continues long after the last page has been turned.