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THE FIRST NOVEL BY NICOLAS MATHIEU, WINNER OF THE 2018 PRIX GONCOURT
A literary crime novel of the new social order, where the white lower class blames their bosses, the Arabs, the rich, and the whole world at the same time… It is the story of a world that has come to an end. With a girl, a .45 Colt, and the snow.
A factory closes in the Vsoges, and nobody cares. Hundreds of people have been sacked, they’re now unemployed, on benefits, their kids won’t go to summer camp anymore. There’s a couple of news items in the evening, and then basta.
But factories are full of dangerous people with nothing left to lose. Like Martel, the trade union guy who collects tattoos, or Bruce, the body-builder addicted to steroids. People who have the time and the bad idea to kidnap a girl on the pavements of Strasbourg and sell her to two big guns of the criminal underworld…
“[An] uncompromising portrait of a working class eaten up by the frustration and resentment of having been abandoned, and sinking into alcoholism and racism”. — Paris Match
A literary crime novel of the new social order, where the white lower class blames their bosses, the Arabs, the rich, and the whole world at the same time… It is the story of a world that has come to an end. With a girl, a .45 Colt, and the snow.
A factory closes in the Vsoges, and nobody cares. Hundreds of people have been sacked, they’re now unemployed, on benefits, their kids won’t go to summer camp anymore. There’s a couple of news items in the evening, and then basta.
But factories are full of dangerous people with nothing left to lose. Like Martel, the trade union guy who collects tattoos, or Bruce, the body-builder addicted to steroids. People who have the time and the bad idea to kidnap a girl on the pavements of Strasbourg and sell her to two big guns of the criminal underworld…
“[An] uncompromising portrait of a working class eaten up by the frustration and resentment of having been abandoned, and sinking into alcoholism and racism”. — Paris Match
Reviews
PRAISE FOR AND THEIR CHILDREN AFTER THEM: 'Deeply felt . . . An exceptional portrait of youth
[A] page-turner of a novel . . . I couldn't put the book down
Mathieu won France's prestigious Goncourt prize for this absorbing Nineties narrative set in a French valley community left stranded by the decline of industry . . . a multi-viewpoint panorama of thwarted aspirations, spiced with breathy sex scenes and nostalgic detail
And Their Children After Them finds space for beauty, for tenderness, for hope . . . you might think of a Ken Loach movie with a soundtrack by Bruce Springsteen . . . an elegiac anthem
The plot, involving drug dealing and simmering violence . . . keeps you turning the pages.
