Name: A searing new novel from the author of Love Me Tender

(Paperback, Main)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

In the world of the bourgeoisie and aristocrats, names are everything. They are currency that cannot be bartered but give their owners access, respect and above all, protection from the laws that govern those unfortunate souls who belong to classes without names, people who might as well be nameless. To the narrator of Constance Debr's third novel, her name is a dead weight to cut herself free from. Tracing a family legacy of aristocrats and politicians, including her late grandfather, a former president of France, the narrator unravels a tapestry of relationships and bonds made fraught by addiction, pride and grief. As her parents struggle with substance abuse and their own histories, our narrator becomes resolute in her choice to live an existence unencumbered by responsibility, expectations, and a name she has long been ready to part with.

Reviews

The most compulsive voice I've read in years -- Olivia Laing * Guardian *
Constance Debr is radical in shucking off not only the trappings of matrimony but also of class * Financial Times *
Bold and brash and at the same time quietly controlled ... Debr is brilliantly deadpan * Spectator *
A spitting, snarling tour de force of fuck-you feminist defiance -- Imogen Crimp

Author Bio

Constance Debr is the author of Love Me Tender, which won the Prix Littraire des Inrockuptibles in 2020 and Playboy, which won the Prix de la Coupole in 2018. Her novella Offenses, based on her work as a defence attorney, is forthcoming from Tuskar Rock.Lauren Elkin is the award-winning author of several books. Her essays on art, literature, and culture have appeared in the London Review of Books, New York Times, Granta, Harper's, Le Monde, Les Inrockuptibles, and Frieze, among others. She is also an award-winning translator, most recently of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel The Inseparables.