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How to Love, Lisa Moore
We are in Newfoundland, the storm of the century hits the town of Saint-Jean, where a young man is beaten and then left for dead in a snowdrift. His mother tries to understand what happened to him; His search will take him into her family's history for generations. A reflection on family ties and a sense of community that has so seduced English critics that it ranks among the Newfoundland writer's best writings.
January 30th
How to love
Boreal
496 pages
American Mother, Colum McCann with Diane Foley
As in his critically acclaimed novel Apeirogon, the Irish-born writer sought to confront reality through writing. This time he accompanied the mother of the first American hostage executed by the Islamic State group (journalist James Foley) to the trial of his executioner, whom she invited to a meeting. This is how this powerful text was created, which speaks of courage in the face of horror, of faith, of hope, but also of the unimaginable loss of a mother and the possibility of forgiveness.
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American mother
Belfond
208 pages
The Happy Life, David Foenkinos
“Never before has an era been so marked by the desire to change lives. “We all want to be someone else at some point in our lives,” writes the author of “Charlotte” in his new novel. During a trip to South Korea, Éric and Amélie lose touch with each other. By chance, he discovers a place in Seoul where patients are invited to witness their own funeral in advance. Changed by the experience, Éric decides to import the ritual to France.
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Happy life
Gallimard
208 pages
Making a Woman, Marie Darrieussecq
Readers of “You Must Love Men a Lot” and “La mer à l'envers” will find the characters of Solange and Rose at the beginning of their adult lives. In the 1980s, in the Basque Country, in Bordeaux and then in Paris, the two friends will experience destinies that are both connected and very different. A great coming-of-age novel for women, funny and sincere, navigating between study and first love, adventure and motherhood, in the Mitterrand era, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the onset of AIDS.
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Making a woman
POLE
336 pages
Travel without luggage, Tove Jansson
La Peuplade continues its mission to revive the work of the Moomins' creator, who died in 2001, by publishing her writings in French – some of which, like this one, have not yet been translated. This fourth novel in the collection tells brief moments of humanity through the story of a man who decides to escape from his peers by going to the sea, the story of a moral little boy who tests his family on a Finnish island, or something like that from two old men who argue over a bench for weeks. A must-read that you will surely read with a smile on your face.
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Travel without luggage
The people
280 pages
From Gold and Jungle, Jean-Christophe Rufin
The academic and Prix Goncourt set out to write a contemporary adventure novel in the tradition of his great successes. The condition? On the run from crisis-ridden America, digital giants are trying to gain their own state. Fascinating… and certainly in tune with the times.
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Gold and jungle
Calmann-Lévy
400 pages
The Blood of the Innocents, SA Cosby
The author of Anger, a dark novel that blew us away last year, is the literary darling of the moment in the United States (he was even Jimmy Fallon's guest on The Tonight Show a few months ago). In this third title, he revives a South that still lives in the footsteps of the famous Mason-Dixon line with the story of a former FBI agent who becomes the first black sheriff of a small Virginia county. He must brave attacks from all sides, even from his own people, as he tries to shed light on the death of a young black man who was shot by police after shooting a teacher.
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The blood of the innocent
Sonatina
400 pages
The Night Bitch Rachel Yoder
The original title “Nightbitch” is probably more apt to describe this first novel, which caused a stir in the United States and the Anglo-Saxon world – The Guardian called it a “wild beginning”, although it will be brought to the screen in 2011 and 2024 with Amy Adams in the lead role. The narrator, who has just become a mother, now feels like “the service dog,” and this feeling will take on unexpected proportions… When night falls, she literally turns into a dog, a way of confronting the question with audacity and biting humor to approach identity in the face of motherhood.
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The night bitch
Flammarion
320 pages
The Enchanted Kingdom, Russell Banks
This posthumous novel by the great American writer, who died just a year ago, picks up the life of a man in the 1970s after his family settled in the swamps of Florida, at the heart of a community of devout and teetotal Shakers. As throughout his work, we find his questions about memory, faith and love in the face of adversity, in the shadows of postcard landscapes.
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The Enchanted Kingdom
Southern Laws
400 pages
Louisiana, Julia Malye
Qualified for “ “Phenomenon novel” from Livres Hebdo, this fourth title by the 27-year-old novelist (who published her first at the age of 15), was turned into a series and was the subject of auctions that fetched six-figure sums, we learn the specialized French website. We will therefore definitely want to find out why we speak of an “unforgettable fresco” to describe the story of these young women who were sent to the harsh territory of Louisiana in 1720 to marry colonists.
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Louisiana
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560 pages