Grégoire Delacourt’s La Liste de Mes Envies, is a novel first published in 2012 and translated into English two years later. A middle-aged Frenchwoman, Jocelyne, is married to her equally middle-aged husband, Jocelyn. They live in Arras, a provincial town, where he works for Hagen Dazs while she runs a haberdashery shop. She also has a website on which she writes about the joys of doing handicrafts. She gets many favorable responses and even attracts some journalistic attention. The marriage, while not perfect, is fairly good, or so Jocelyne thinks. She would be happy to live with her husband to the end of their days.

They have two adult children. There is a daughter who lives with an Irish guy in London; and a no-good son who periodically changes his equally useless girlfriends and, following them, drifts from one place to another.

One day, pressed by friends (two women, twins) who run a nearby haircutting shop, she buys a lottery ticket. Lo and behold, she wins! A little over 18,000,000 Euro (about 25,000,000 US Dollars)! What is she going to do with the money? It is a question I have often asked myself and of the answer to which I feel fairly sure.

I would start by distributing a considerable sum among my children. Not in order to “secure their future,” as the saying goes; that is something they should do for themselves. But only so as to help them improve the quality of their lives and have things a little easier than they are. I would also help out our “adopted” children Amihai and Shmulik (a homosexual couple, incidentally)—not with money, for presumably they would refuse to take it, but in some other way.

I might change my beloved townhouse in Mevasseret Zion, near Jerusalem, where I have lived for thirty years, for a single-floor house. Not because I want to, but because such a house would be more suitable to the needs of my wife who is having growing difficulties walking. Instead of flying economy class, as is my wont, I would use business.

There are a few more things. New sofas, perhaps, though that can wait. New night stands; ours are forty years old. Yet so minor are they as to be hardly worth mentioning. I could easily afford them even now. But I want to spend my days reading and writing, not house-hunting etc. Having money would make the move easier.

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I would spend some of the money on charity. I like Wikipedia—to any thinking person today, it has become indispensable. So I would help out. I like Wikileaks—hopefully it helps keep our dear rulers a little more honest than they would otherwise be. I would give money to the kind of radio station that broadcasts lots of early modern and classical music. I might also give some money to an institute of higher learning. But not, I am sorry to say, to my own former alma mater in Jerusalem. The condition would be that political correctness be thrown out of the window and that everybody, students and faculty, be allowed to speak his or her mind on any subject without fear of reprisal.

A late uncle of mine, who was very wealthy, once told me that the one thing harder than making money is to distribute it properly. I know he was right. But back to the novel. The lottery employs a psychologist, a woman, whose job it is to tell winners to take care. Beware of every kind of beggar who, with true and untrue stories at the ready, will approach her asking for money. Of bankers with their unctuous smiles and false promises; and of relatives who, crazed with greed, will do what they can to try and put their hands on some or even all of her money. Should she need help, Jocelyne is told, the psychologist will always be there. Having received the cheque, she visits one of those shops where “celebrities” get their fancy stuff. Only to find there is nothing she really needs or is worth buying.

Returning home, she hides the cheque in a shoe. Some days later, while cleaning a cupboard, she notices it has disappeared. Jocelyn has found it. Suspecting—rightly—that she might throw it away, he tricked her into believing that his employers were sending him on a course and took off. Later she finds out he is in Brussels. The shock is terrible.

Time passes. She imagines Jocelyn spending money like water. A luxurious flat; an expensive red Audi; suits; and, of course, women. Both of the kind with whom he hopes to start some relationship and of the kind he pays for meeting, or trying to meet, his sexual needs. He is, however, desperately lonely and longs for his old life. That includes Jocelyne, his house, his friends, his job. Returning from imagination to reality, one day Jocelyne receives a letter with a cheque for the bulk of the money, some 15,000,000 Euro. He begs her forgiveness and asks her to take him back. She does not answer. Not receiving one, he starves himself to death.

But now Jocelyne knows what to do with her own life. She gives each of the twins who made her buy the winning lottery ticket a small car. She helps her pregnant daughter and sets up a trust for her shiftless son. She leaves Arras and moves to a larger house on the seashore. There she lives with a man who, years earlier, had noted her distress—caused by a stillbirth that in turn had caused a marital crisis—and offered help, a cup of good tea, and a kiss. His appearance, incidentally, is the only detail in the entire novel that I found incredible. She takes in her old, senile father so she can look after him better and cheer up his last years. Having gone through a crisis, and by helping others, she grows.

And you?