Crossed Lines

When her mother offers Rose a Mediterranean cruise with her two children, she jumps at the chance to get away from her husband who drinks too much, and the renovations of their holiday house in the south. But one night the cruise ship comes upon a shipwrecked boat full of refugees, who are taken aboard. Without telling her teenage son, Rose gives his mobile phone to a young Nigerian refugee. Does she want to be some kind of a hero, ease her conscience? Now what is she in for? The secret phone connection takes Rose and her family on a journey of discovery.

With her trademark wit and acid intelligence, Marie Darrieussecq, like Rachel Cusk or Jenny Offill, shines a light on issues of individual responsibility in our complex world.

Marie Darrieussecq was born in Bayonne in 1969 and is recognised as one of the leading voices of contemporary French literature. Her first novel, Pig Tales, was translated into thirty-five languages. She has written more than twenty books. Text has published Tom Is Dead, All the Way, Men, Being Here: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker, Our Life in the Forest, The Baby and Crossed Lines. In 2013 Marie Darrieussecq was awarded the Prix Médicis and the Prix des Prix for her novel Men. She has written art criticism and journalism for a number of publications, including Libération and Charlie Hebdo, and is also a translator from English and has practised as a psychoanalyst. She lives in Paris.

‘Darrieussecq has a force of clarity, an ability to take herself seriously without the need for self-deprecation. She is always original, always thrilling.’ Australian

‘A moving, humane, often funny novel about instances of heroism that can save a life…Darrieuessecq champions an ordinary, powerless individual, who proves herself nonetheless capable, now and again, of doing good things that, without saving the world, can reduce the suffering of another individual. What would we have done if we were Rose? Or rather: what are we doing?’ Les Inrockuptibles

‘No other author writes about being a mother as intensely and as precisely as Marie Darrieussecq…This is the story of a woman asking herself how she can be in some way honourable in the face of the world’s absurdity…Written with compassion and humour, and with no moral other than that of giving meaning to one’s existence.’ Elle

‘Crossed Lines is a wonderful novel, one of those books that never leaves you, which you remember with absolute clarity. It is a perfect work of fiction, giving you the happy sensation of recognition.’ Charlie Hebdo