The Laws of the Skies

(Paperback)

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Description

Twelve six-year-olds and their three adult chaperones head into the woods on a camping trip. None of them make it out alive.

The Laws of the Skies follows the terrified children as they scatter into the night to escape danger, dressed only in their pyjamas. They face their darkest childhood fears and new imaginary threats, like trolls masquerading as boulders and child-eating tree trunks.

A harrowing story of those days in the woods, of illness, poisoning, and accidents: of a love triangle among tots: a pint-sized hero: and a child on a murderous rampage that comes to a grisly end. Part fairy tale, part horror story, this macabre fable takes us through the minds of all the members of this doomed part, murderers and murdered alike.

Reviews

"Unflinching in its savagery, the nightmarish poetry of this modern Lord of the Flies is undeniable." Publishers Weekly

"The French know how to push horrors boundaries, and Courtois is no exception. In this sliver of a novel, he gradually picks off his cast, mounting tension by juxtaposing horrific action with the childrens innocence and an innocuous setting Courtois expertly orchestrated decimation melds into a brutal whole that leaves the reader shaken, though its final images will prove unshakable. Booklist, starred review

Excellent...crystalline." New York Times, Summer Reads

Where can the line between the primal storytelling of fairy tales and horror stories be found InThe Laws of the Skies, which focuses on a camping trip gone horribly wrong, it becomes readily apparent that the border territory between those two types of stories can be its own fertile territory for captivating narratives. Vol. 1 Brooklyn, "May 2019 Book Preview"

The ensuing story has a whiff of allegory: adults abandon their charges, classmates turn against classmates, and nature, quite literally, swallows them up. Its unsettling. Along the way, Courtois raises pointed questions about the environment, the hereditary nature of evil, and the responsibilities of an older generation to the new. I felt absolutely nauseated by the end, and I have to admire thatits not every day that a book provokes such a strong physical reaction in me. Rhian Sasseen,The Paris ReviewStaff Picks

Courtois new forest noir of children gone missing in the woods evokes myth, fairytale, and nightmare. The Laws of the Skies begins when a school trip to explore nature leaves a number of students stranded with a murderer, and only gets stranger from there. Also this one wins oddest comparison blurb -- the publisher describes this book as Winnie-the-Pooh meets the Blair Witch Project. In other words, irresistible! CrimeReads, "May's Best International Crime Fiction"

A savage little book that reads like a cross between Lord of the Flies and a lost-in-the-woods slasher novel an intense yet ambiguous critique of our love for violence. Brian Evanson forPublishers Weekly, 10 Scariest Novels

That is what Courtois aims to do shock and destabilize and that is what he does in this slim novel about a childrens camping trip gone horribly wrong. New York Times, Summer Reads

"The Law of the Skies is not an easy book to digest, and Im sure it wont be to everyones tastes, but I found it exhilarating to read a novel thats this unflinching, this nihilistic, and also this deeply profound." Locus Magazine

Author Bio

Grgoire Courtois lives and works in Burgundy, where he runs the independent bookstore Obliques, which he bought in 2011. A novelist and playwright, he has published three novels with Le Quartanier: Rvolution(2011), Surquipe (2015), and Les lois du ciel (2016). In 2013 he founded Caractres, an international book festival in Auxerre, which he continues to run. Rhonda Mullins is a writer and translator. She received the 2015 Governor General's Literary Award for Twenty-One Cardinals, her translation of Jocelyne Saucier's Les hritiers de la mine. And the Birds Rained Down, her translation of Jocelyne Sauciers Il pleuvait des oiseaux, was a CBC Canada Reads Selection. It was also shortlisted for the Governor Generals Literary Award, as were her translations of lise Turcottes Guyana and Herv Fischers The Decline of the Hollywood Empire. Rhonda currently lives in Montral. Rhonda Mullins is a writer and translator. She received the 2015 Governor General's Literary Award for Twenty-One Cardinals, her translation of Jocelyne Saucier's Les hritiers de la mine. And the Birds Rained Down, her translation of Jocelyne Sauciers Il pleuvait des oiseaux, was a CBC Canada Reads Selection. It was also shortlisted for the Governor Generals Literary Award, as were her translations of lise Turcottes Guyana and Herv Fischers The Decline of the Hollywood Empire. Rhonda currently lives in Montral.