Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023
Buried deep in rural France,little remains of the isolated hamlet of the Three Lone Girls,save a few houses and a curiously assembled quartet: Patrice Bergogne,inheritor of his family's farm; his wife,Marion; their daughter,Ida; and their neighbour,Christine,an artist. While Patrice plans a surprise for his wife's fortieth birthday,inexplicable events start to disrupt the hamlet's quiet existence: anonymous,menacing letters,an unfamiliar car rolling up the driveway. And as night falls,strangers stalk the houses,unleashing a nightmarish chain of events.
Told in rhythmic,propulsive prose that weaves seamlessly from one consciousness to the next over the course of a day,Laurent Mauvignier's The Birthday Party is a deft unravelling of the stories we hide from others and from ourselves,a gripping tale of the violent irruptions of the past into the present,written by a major contemporary French writer.
Publisher: Fitzcarraldo EditionsISBN: 9781804270226Dimensions: 197 x 125 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'The Birthday Party is a strange and marvellous thing: a thriller in slow motion. The tension builds so patiently that you almost miss it,with the result that when shocking events occur it's too late to turn away. This is a dark and discomfiting work of beauty and violence,made all the more disturbing by its idyllic setting.'- Jon McGregor,author of Lean Fall Stand
Kommentar