People Like Them
the award-winning thriller for fans of Lullaby
-
-
3.9 • 7 Ratings
-
-
- $15.99
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA DAGGER IN TRANSLATION
'Disturbing and powerful … I loved it' - Leïla Slimani, author of Lullaby
'Icy and chilling... In sharply drawn sentences, Sedira summons the beauty of a small French village, and the shocking acts of the people inside it' - Flynn Berry, author of the Reese Whitherspoon Book Club pick, Northern Spy
You sprinted all the way to the river. What were you running from?
Anna and Constant Guillot and their two daughters live in the peaceful, remote mountain village of Carmac. Everyone in Carmac knows each other, leading simple lives mostly unaffected by the outside world – that is until Bakary and Sylvia Langlois arrive with their three children.
The new family's impressive chalet and expensive cars are in stark contrast with the modesty of those of their neighbours, yet despite their initial differences, the Langlois and the Guillots form an uneasy friendship. But when both families come under financial strain, the underlying class and racial tensions of their relationship reach breaking point, culminating in act of abhorrent violence.
With piercing psychological insight and gripping storytelling, People Like Them asks the questions: How could a seemingly ordinary person commit the most extraordinary crime? And how could their loved ones ever come to terms with what they'd done?
Lullaby meets Little Fires Everywhere, this intense, suspenseful prize-winning novel explores the darker side of human nature - and the terrible things people are capable of.
*Winner of the Prix Eugène Dabit*
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by a 2003 mass homicide in Haute-Savoie, French author Sedira's too-slight English-language debut opens with the trial of Constant Guillot, a white working-class man from Carmac. Constant is charged with murdering his wealthy, sophisticated new neighbors—Bakary Langlois, a Gabon-born Black man raised in Paris; Bakary's white wife, Sylvia; and the couple's three mixed-race children, all between the ages of seven and 12. There's no doubt of Constant's guilt, as he confessed in gory detail. The only open question is what incited the atrocity—a mystery that narrator Anna, Constant's partner and the mother of his three- and six-year-old daughters, reflects upon while the court case progresses. Though Sedira paints a colorful portrait of life in a provincial French village, she offers only a cursory examination of Constant's possible motives, rendering the tale more character sketch than fully fledged novel. Key events unfold either via flashback or prosecutorial monologue, sapping them of immediacy and impact. Crime fiction fans will be left wanting.
