A French Novel
Описание книги
Already a huge hit in France, the new novel from Independent Foreign Fiction Award-winning author of ‘Windows on the World’.In his most autobiographical text to date, Beigbeder recounts his stay in a French police cell in January 2008, after he was arrested for snorting cocaine off a car bonnet outside a nightclub in the super-chic 8th arrondissement of Paris. As he lies in the cell, he revisits his childhood, from the carefree days when his grandfather taught him to skim pebbles at the beach in Cénitz, to his parents’ divorce, the conflicting influences of his hedonistic father and studious, seemingly conventional brother who ‘has it all’, and his own first, unrequited loves. This patchwork of memories is as much a portrait of the era as it is the story of a fragile, self-critical man who has finally dropped the mask.Sharp, witty – with a particularly pitiless irony directed at himself – and yet tender, ‘A French Novel’ is a gem. Beigbeder’s reminiscences, his search for answers in the lost country of his childhood, will speak to a whole generation searching for its soul.
Оглавление
Frédéric Beigbeder. A French Novel
Epigraph
Dedication
FOREWORD
PROLOGUE
1. CLIPPED WINGS
2. LOST GRACE
3. FLASHBACKS OF MYSELF
4. VOWELS, CONSONANTS
5. FRAGMENTS OF AN ARREST
6. GUÉTHARY, 1972
7. NATURAL HELLS
8. THE ORIGINAL RAKE
9. A FRENCH NOVEL
10. WITH FAMILY
11. END OF AN ERA
12. BEFORE THEY WERE MY PARENTS, THEY WERE NEIGHBOURS
13. REVELATIONS ABOUT THE LAMBERTS
14. HEARING PROBLEMS
15. AFFECTIVE PROGNATHISM
16. QUIET DAYS IN NEUILLY
17. A CLAUSTROPHOBIC CHAPTER
18. DIVORCE, FRENCH-STYLE
19. VAN VOGT’S ‘NULL-A’ AND FRED’S ‘A’
20. MADAME RATEL PAINTS
21. FORGOTTEN FINGER
22. RETURN TO GUÉTHARY
23. RUE MAÎTRE-ALBERT
24. CASSETTES
25. THE REVEALING CHILD
26. A SCIENTIFIC DIGRESSION
27. THE TRIP ACROSS PARIS
28. BROTHER OF THE ABOVE-NAMED
29. COULD TRY HARDER
30. FORCE-FED CHILDREN
31. PRISON BREAK
32. DREAMS AND ILLUSIONS
33. THE DISHONEST TRUTH
34. THE SECOND FATHER
35. THE END OF AMNESIA
36. THE DAY I BROKE MY MOTHER’S HEART
37. PARENTAL INVENTORY
38. THE FRENCH DREAM
39. COMPULSIVE LIARS
40. RELEASE
41. NEW YORK, 1981 OR 1982
42. RESULTS
43. THE A IN ATLANTIS
EPILOGUE
Footnotes
Windows on the World Frédéric Beigbeder
Holiday in a Coma & Love Lasts Three Years:Two Novels Frédéric Beigbeder
By the Same Author
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher