Contrary to what is happening lately in Spain with the "great" literary recognitions, in France a platform such as the Goncourt award serves to discover that great book that no one should miss. Another example would be Eric Vuillard and his "The order of the day«.
And this is how people continue to trust the Goncourts blindly to make sure they find that reading that reconciles them with quality or originality beyond the best sellers of easy, fast, comfortable and easily digestible reading.
Not that Jean-Paul Dubois is an unknown writer in France. But when discovering this novel, the prize for the work beyond the name is soon guessed. A work forged after many other novels sometimes lost in ostracism, that darkness that ends up forging the soul of the narrator determined to continue telling life.
Paul Hansen has been serving a sentence in Montreal Provincial Prison for two years. He shares a cell with Horton, an Angel from Hell incarcerated for murder.
Let's rewind: Hansen is in charge of the Excelsior, a residential building where he exercises his talents as a janitor, watchman, and handyman, and what's more, he mends souls and comforts the afflicted.
When he is not helping the neighbors of the Excelsior or carrying out maintenance tasks on the facilities, he spends time with Winona, his partner, in whose airplane they climb the sky together and fly above the clouds. But things do not take long to change. A new manager arrives at Excelsior and, with him, conflicts. Until the inevitable happens.
You can now buy the novel "Not all men inhabit the world in the same way", by Jean-Paul Dubois, here: