Our Favorites Among This Fall’s New Releases
We’re thrilled to share our first staff picks of the fall with you. As you’ll see, we all went in different directions to find our coups de coeur, and that alone says something about this rentrée littéraire. Far from being dominated by one book getting all the attention (as has recently been the case with Despentes’ Cher Connard, or whenever Houellebecq has a new book out), this rentrée littéraire is diverse and beaming with talented new voices! Let the discovery begin!
Reading List
Chloé Delaume is back with a new novel, in which her sarcastic vein has not aged a day. Through Clotilde Mélisse, her fictional double, she magnificently deconstructs the great myth of love in Pauvre folle.
During a train journey to Heidelberg, Clotilde analyzes with great humor and lucidity her relationship with Guillaume, a homosexual man she met ten years earlier, with whom she has created a strong bond that goes beyond friendship. It’s a fusional, obsessive, and destructive relationship that may have a link to some of her wounds from the past. Read more
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This novel explores the foggy origins of the plague during the 14th century Inquisition, through the eyes of two Dominican brothers, Antonin and Robert.
As their Prior Guillaume begins to narrate his memories, the destiny of a famous man is revealed: that of Master Eckhart, a scholar and mystical preacher whose life and death remain enigmatic. Between trial, conspiracy and religious quest, the prior’s confessions plunge his monastery in Verfeil into turmoil.
Croix de cendre is first and foremost a historical investigation and an adventure novel set at a time when populations lived under the threat of epidemics and ordeals. Antoine Sénanque perfectly blends the reconstruction of this troubled period in Europe with the portrayal of real actors and witnesses.
It is also a philosophical text that echoes the effervescence of theological debate in the universities and monasteries of the time.
The author blends these different genres with rare virtuosity. In a remarkable style, Sénanque reveals a poignant story, a quest for truth from which emerges a strong desire for justice and fraternity.
All in all, a brilliantly written and a remarkable epic novel!
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If Panayotis Pascot is well known today as a humorist, speaker and even as a budding actor, the jaw dropping success of La Prochaine fois que tu mordras la poussière (ed. Stock) reveals a brand new aspect of this multi-talented man. In his debut memoir, Panayotis Pascot describes with great subtlety his coming of age years. He doesn’t shy away from his setbacks: from the difficulties he had communicating with his remote father, to the discovery of his sexuality and his own ambivalence towards embracing his masculinity, not to mention his depression. With baffling honesty, the author spares us nothing.
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To break through taboos can require a certain prowess. This prowess Neige Sinno has demonstrated twice. Once, when aged 19, she filed a lawsuit against her stepfather who raped her repeatedly from her 7th until her 15 birthday. Then again, when she published Triste Tigre — which is clearly the book phenomenon of this literary fall.
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Paris, 2022. Camille, a forensic doctor, is trying to keep it together. In the immediate aftermath of Covid, she has to face the consequences of the national health care crisis, drained ER services, the swinging moods of her teenage daughter, and the ups and downs of her ex-companion. One evening, she receives an enigmatic email from an unknown sender, alluding to the Spanish painter Francisco José de Goya and his stolen skull. Camille’s parents and her godfather had long harbored a devouring passion for Goya, which she inherited at a young age. Read more.
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