What a wonderful, powerful book! I finished literally
bouleversé. It's really remarkable - the writing is superb, beautiful even when depicting the most terrible events, never patronizing or romanticizing what and the author writes about. It's an implacable depiction of a mostly forgotten world, and extremely insightful and useful to understand the Le Pen phenomenon in France - and probably similar phenomena in other Western countries. It's very much about politics, and yet it keeps also to the personal view from an individual, whose personality and experience makes him question and face that world. The character of Eddy and his surroundings manages to be totally believable - and moving - never being didactic, and that's how a political novel should be. And how impressive to think Édouard Louis wrote this in his early twenties. I searched him online and read his excellent
interview to the
Paris Review; he's extremely articulate and to the point, and I think his will be a voice to listen to attentively in the future.
(Once more, I'm so grateful to Garth Greenwell for the suggestion!)
