The Birthday Party
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
New York Times Editors’ Choice
“A real-time study in crippling self-consciousness, the fragility of normalcy, and the reality of violence.”—The New York Times
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 neighbor, 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 unraveling 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mauvignier (The Wound) spins a mesmerizing psychological horror set in the seemingly humdrum French hamlet of Three Lone Girls. Farmer Patrice Bergogne readies festivities for his wife, Marion's 40th birthday party while seeing to their young daughter, Ida. Nearby, their neighbor Christine, a solitary painter and practically a member of the family, labors on a canvas depicting a nude woman. Then a series of frightening episodes intrude on the bucolic scenes. First, threatening letters arrive on their doorstep, unsigned and prompting enough alarm for the couple to show them to the police. Then three brothers show up and hold everybody captive. Both Patrice and Marion harbor secrets that come to the forefront during the crisis, and, by the end, everyone is transformed by the mayhem, including Ida, who initially appears as innocence incarnate. The omniscient narration moves elegantly from exterior descriptions to the recesses of the characters' thoughts, and Becker's translation lends menace and grace. Recalling art-shock movies like Funny Games, this is pleasurably cinematic even as it penetrates deep psychological mysteries. Readers will be riveted.
