Live Fast: A Novel
By (Author) Brigitte Giraud
Translated by Cory Stockwell
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
ECCO Press
4th June 2025
United States
General
Fiction
Family life fiction / Stories about family
Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction
843.92
Hardback
176
Width 140mm, Height 210mm, Spine 16mm
256g
Winner of the Prix Goncourt
A powerful autobiographical novel of loss, the incandescent love that remains, and the small decisions that define the course of fate
Paced and structured with the inevitable suspense of a countdown, Brigitte Girauds tense and haunting novel follows one womans quest to comprehend the motorcycle accident that took the life of her partner Claude at age 41.
The narrator of Live Fast recounts the chain of events that led up to the fateful accident, tracing the tiny, madden twists of fate that might have prevented its tragic outcome. Each chapter asks the rhetorical question, what if, departing from an image or memory from early years meeting in Algeria during the war, to moving to the suburbs of Lyon, buying and renovating a home where they could put down their suitcase for a whole life. A sensitive elegy to her husband and a subtle, precise vision of a lasting love, Live Fast is a moving and electrifying portrait of two people caught up in the mundane activities of life, forgetting that living itself can be dangerous.
Brigitte Giraud is a French writer and novelist and the author of fourteen books. She received the 2022 Prix Goncourt for Live Fast, which was also a big bestseller in France. Live Fast is her first book to be published in English.