Edouard Louis's autobiographical novel takes the reader where he or she has likely never been before. Tourists have seen Paris, or the chateaux of the Loire Valley, or maybe Nice; newspapers and opinion columns have explored the insular Muslim communities outside the city centers; but what of the poor native French villager? This is the person who is most likely to vote for Marine Le Pen, to be disdainful of both Arabs and the French middle class.
Louis's novel focuses on a boy growing up in a northern village, in a tumbledown house, with an alcoholic, unemployed father and no apparent way out. The fact that the boy is gay only multiplies his challenges. The story is grounded, at times brutal and always unflinching, in the best tradition of, say, Balzac.
Louis's novel focuses on a boy growing up in a northern village, in a tumbledown house, with an alcoholic, unemployed father and no apparent way out. The fact that the boy is gay only multiplies his challenges. The story is grounded, at times brutal and always unflinching, in the best tradition of, say, Balzac.
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