And Their Children After Them
A Novel
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4.0 • 13 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The internationally acclaimed coming-of-age story set in a forgotten, hopeless region of France—for fans of Sally Rooney and Nathan Hill
This poignant portrait of working-class teens captures the defining moments of 4 summers in the 1990s—from Nirvana to the World Cup.
August, 1992. One afternoon during a heatwave in a desolate valley somewhere in eastern France, with its dormant blast furnaces and its lake, 14-year-old Anthony and his cousin decide to steal a canoe to explore the famous nude beach across the water. The trip ultimately takes Anthony to his first love and a summer that will determine everything that happens afterward.
Nicolas Mathieu conjures up a valley, an era, and the political journey of a young generation that has to forge its own path in a dying world. Four summers and four defining moments, from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to the 1998 World Cup, encapsulate the hectic lives of the inhabitants of a France far removed from the centers of globalization, torn between decency and rage.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mathieu's stunning, bittersweet Prix Goncourt winning English debut follows a teen boy through four summers in a dreary valley in eastern France. In 1992, 14-year-old Anthony schemes with his friends to ogle sunbathers at a "bare-ass" lakeside beach while echoing their parents' racism in response to a neighboring boy's recent drowning ("Everyone naturally figured the Arabs had done the deed, so people kind of hoped for a settling of scores"). Anthony's solitary yearning emerges in staccato lines ("At night, wearing headphones, he sometimes wrote songs. His parents were jerks"), and his restlessness is reflected in Mathieu's shaggy, aimless story. Anthony's and his friends' repeated adolescent male behavior hanging out on the beach, drinking, trying to hook up with girls is depicted in beautifully observed detail, while Mathieu's unblinking descriptions of Anthony's parents, H l ne and Patrick, a fading beauty and a hard-drinking racist beaten down by their dead-end blue-collar jobs, give the novel greater impact. Anthony's provincial story is bookended by moments the release of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and France's World Cup victory that stir him, but don't change his life, and he has little to look forward to beyond the poverty and bleak outlook of his parents and friends as he enters adulthood. Mathieu's subtle craft will enrapture readers and appeal to fans of douard Louis.
