On the Clock

A marvelous debut from the hugely talented young French writer Claire Baglin, this tender and painful portrait of working-class life finds shards of poetry inside the twin hardships of poverty and service work

Claire Baglin’s On the Clock packs a family saga, a penetrating picture of social inequality, and a coming-of-age story into a compact tale told in two alternating strands. The first follows the 20-year-old narrator’s summer job at a fast food franchise and the other shows us moments f...