Heatwave: An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing

An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021
A short, sharp, shock of a novel beautifully doneDaily Mail
'The modern day successor to Francoise Sagan'Evening Standard
Jestin evokes adolescent turmoil with great delicacy and poignancyTimes Literary Supplement
'The Summer Page-Turner You Have To Read' Waterstones
Winner of the Prix de la vocation 2019
Winner of the Prix Femina de lycens 2019
Longlisted for the Crime Writers Association 'Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger' 2022

Translated by Sam Taylor, translator ofLullabyby Leila Slimani,The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affairby Jol Dicker andHHhH by Laurent Binet

Leonard is an outsider, a seventeen-year-old uncomfortable in his own skin who is forced to endure a family camping holiday in the South of France. Tired of awkwardly creeping out of beach parties after only a couple of beers, he chooses to spend the final Friday night of the trip in bed. However, when he cannot sleep due to the sound of wild carousing outside his tent, he gets up and goes for a walk.

As he wanders among the dunes, he sees Oscar, one of the cooler kids, drunk in a playground, hanging by his neck from the ropes of a swing. Frozen into inaction, he watches Oscar struggle to breathe until finally his body comes loose and falls lifeless to the ground. Unable to think straight, he buries Oscar in the sand and returns to the campsite where, oppressed by the ferocious heat and the weight of what he did and did not do, he will try to spend the remaining hours of the holiday as if nothing had happened.

Told over the space of a long weekend, this intense and brilliant novel is the story of an adolescent struggling to fit in. Heatwave is a gripping psychological thriller that poses the existential question:

Is doing nothing sometimes the very worst thing you can do

PRAISE FOR HEATWAVE:

"This is a searingly vivid novel that depicts the torments of adolescence in a sensual, carnal way. But it is also a profound meditation on the mystery of evil, our deadly urges, and the savagery that lies deep within each of us. I loved the writing, which is spare but highly evocative, and I admired the way that the author used the enclosed world of the campsite to fuel the claustrophobic tension that mounts throughout."Leila Slimani, author ofLullaby

With a searing voice, Victor Jestin captures the stale air of tents, the cheap music, the guys disguised in pink bunny suits who force you to have fun, teenagers as poignant as they are idiotic, rage, desire, absurdity. In effect, scorching Grazia

Eerie, propulsive, sexy, and unsettling, Victor JestinsHeatwavecarries the coming-of-age novel into darkly surprising new territory. With echoes ofthe films ofFrancois Ozon, this intense, slim novel is a hot summer read that lingers long after you finish the last page Laura Sims, author ofLooker

A fiery page-turner Entertainment Weekly

Jestins charged and chilling debut turns on a stifling vacation that descends from purgatory into a nightmarish inferno Publishers Weekly

Victor Jestin succeeds in transporting us with almost nothing, this unique style, this voiceone might almost say these whispers.... A tour de force Le Figaro Culture

For his first novel, Victor Jestin displays a stunning literary talent. Its short, pitiless, polished, perfectly realized Livres Hebdo

Every page burns your fingers Le Figaro Magazine

The young author of this first novel keeps all promises, with writing of a rare precision, mature and carnal... Moving and cinematic La Vie

At 25, Victor Jestin makes his mark with an unsettling first novel Elle

An author so young, who succeeds in creating such a powerful fable, demands to be followed Lire

A sensual first novel thats remorseless about the end of innocence Le Vif LExpress

A beautiful narrative that puts into play the kind of guilt that wont quit a boy whos alienated from his world and resistant to all its codesTelerama

Tense and brief, this text plays with the codes of a first novel to paint a portrait of a sad and aloof teenager LHumanite

Victor Jestin portrays with cruel exactitude the throes of an adolescent trapped in a secret too heavy to bear LObs

At 25, Victor Jestin has written a Sagan-like novel. A Francoise Sagan of today under high heat, in the full sense of the word Le Parisien Dimanche

This drawn-out wandering of a boy outside the norm has been brought to life by the incredible precision of this young authors voice Prima

You devour this book, but its effects linger, so strongly does it reverberate with destinies sacrificed to the yawn of the void Le Point

Reviews

Eerie, propulsive, sexy, and unsettling, Victor JestinsHeatwavecarries the coming-of-age novel into darkly surprising new territory. With echoes ofthe films ofFrancois Ozon, this intense, slim novel is a hot summer read that lingers long after you finish the last page Laura Sims, author ofLooker

A fiery page-turner Entertainment Weekly

Jestins charged and chilling debut turns on a stifling vacation that descends from purgatory into a nightmarish inferno Publishers Weekly

With a searing voice, Victor Jestin captures the stale air of tents, the cheap music, the guys disguised in pink bunny suits who force you to have fun, teenagers as poignant as they are idiotic, rage, desire, absurdity. In effect, scorching Grazia

Victor Jestin succeeds in transporting us with almost nothing, this unique style, this voiceone might almost say these whispers.... A tour de force Le Figaro Culture

For his first novel, Victor Jestin displays a stunning literary talent. Its short, pitiless, polished, perfectly realized Livres Hebdo

Every page burns your fingers Le Figaro Magazine

The young author of this first novel keeps all promises, with writing of a rare precision, mature and carnal... Moving and cinematic La Vie

At 25, Victor Jestin makes his mark with an unsettling first novel Elle

An author so young, who succeeds in creating such a powerful fable, demands to be followed Lire

A sensual first novel thats remorseless about the end of innocence Le Vif LExpress

A beautiful narrative that puts into play the kind of guilt that wont quit a boy whos alienated from his world and resistant to all its codesTelerama

Tense and brief, this text plays with the codes of a first novel to paint a portrait of a sad and aloof teenager LHumanite

Victor Jestin portrays with cruel exactitude the throes of an adolescent trapped in a secret too heavy to bear LObs

At 25, Victor Jestin has written a Sagan-like novel. A Francoise Sagan of today under high heat, in the full sense of the word Le Parisien Dimanche

This drawn-out wandering of a boy outside the norm has been brought to life by the incredible precision of this young authors voice Prima

You devour this book, but its effects linger, so strongly does it reverberate with destinies sacrificed to the yawn of the void Le Point

Author Bio

Victor Jestin is 25 years old. He grew up in Nantes and now lives in Paris. Heatwave is his first novel.