The sordid, the most tacky part of the world, that swamp under all the good intentions of the world, wakes up its stench as we get older. Still saved by innocence waiting in that of awakening to cynicism, the last drops of hope lift the refuge.
It is about that construct in which to shelter ourselves from that moment until the last of our days while reality continues with its disguised involution. That's what this novel about Adeline Dieudonne in the key of childhood, awakening and feminism, a touching, lyrical and vindictive combination.
Synopsis
Distinguished in France and Belgium with the most prestigious awards, True life has conquered European readers thanks to his powerful narrative voice, the freshness of his style and a pulsating story with the precise doses of tenderness, uneasiness and humor. A first novel that for younger generations has become a survival manual in a hostile environment.
In the XNUMXs, an eleven-year-old girl resides with her family in La Demo, a gloomy development of "about fifty gray chalets lined up like tombstones." In his house there are four rooms: his, that of his little brother Gilles, that of his parents and "that of the corpses", occupied by the hunting trophies of a father whose unpredictable attacks of anger have turned his mother, the eyes of the girl, in an «amoeba».
The only emotional support for this girl with an overflowing imagination, endowed with an innate talent for mathematics and physics, is six-year-old little Gilles. Together they wait for the ice cream truck to arrive every day while playing among abandoned cars or visiting Monica, an eccentric storyteller from the neighboring Colgaditos forest. On any given day, however, a brutal accident destroys his world and nothing will ever be the same again.
Acid, relentless and fun, True life It grabs us from the front line due to the emotional impact of the story and the surprising maturity of the protagonist, a girl forced to grow up in an environment from which it is impossible to escape unscathed.
You can now buy the novel "True Life", by Adeline Dieudonné, here: