My Little Husband

by Pascal Bruckner, Mike Mitchell (Translator)

Overview

The diminutive Leon is the envy of all Paris when he becomes engaged to the successful stomatologist and ravishing 6ft beauty Solange, who leaves no man unstirred - including the priest who weds them. The dutiful husband happily ignores jealous remarks about the union of 'giraffe and zebra' as he sires one beautiful baby after another.
But as his domestic bliss with Solange continues and their brood grows, Leon's body begins to shrink - with the exception of one vital organ - until the medical marvel is scarcely taller than a thimble. Can Solange's love for her 'Little bighorn' survive his diminished status, the onslaught of suitors at her door and his nocturnal abseiling down her body? Will Leon escape the paws of the family cat and the murderous thoughts of his children embarrassed by their father's s size?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781909232310
Publisher:	Dedalus, Limited
Publication date:	09/09/2014
Series:	Dedalus Euro Sorts
Pages:	137
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Pascal Bruckner is best known as a controversial philosopher. Two of his essays - The Tyranny of Guilt and Perpetual Euphoria: On the duty to be Happy were published to great acclaim in English translation in 2011 and 2012. In 2013 an English translation of his essay Has Marriage for Love Failed? was published. He has won two major French prizes for his fiction: The Prix Medecis and The Prix Renaudot.
His novel Lunes de fiel was made into the film Bitter Moon by Roman Polanski.

Mike Mitchell has published over seventy translations from German and French, including Gustav Meyrink's five novels and The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy. His translation of Rosendorfer's Letters Back to Ancient China won the 1998 Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize after he had been shortlisted twice before.
His translations have been shortlisted four times for The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize: Simplicissimus by Johann Grimmelshausen in 1999, The Other Side by Alfred Kubin in 2000, The Bells of Bruges by Georges Rodenbach in 2008 and the Lairds of Cromarty by Jean Pierre Ohl in 2013.

Read an Excerpt

Six weeks after the birth of Baptiste, Leon, putting on hiscorduroy jacket, the one he wore when they were going outinto the country, noticed that the sleeves had stretched andcame half way down his fingers while the shoulders droopedmore than usual. 'Shit! And I had it made to measure. I'll have to take it backto the tailor.'He took another jacket out of the wardrobe — with thesame result. It too seemed to have grown during the night,and the ends of the sleeves dangled down as if his arms weremere stumps. He started to laugh. What was going on? Wassomeone playing a joke on him? Ok then, he'd tuck up thesleeves and put on a sweater underneath to bulk out his chestand shoulders. But then when he tried his black slip-ons hisfeet were lost inside them and his toes didn't reach to the endany more. Furious, he stuffed some newspaper into his shoesand went out with the strange feeling of having put on his bigbrother's clothes. Even though he'd decided to ignore the problem, hecouldn't help feeling slightly disturbed. He ran throughvarious hypotheses, each crazier than the last: as a practicaljoke Solange had replaced his clothes with other, similar oneswhich were just a little bit bigger. But why should she playa trick like that on him? She'd never made anything of hersuperior height. She had chosen him from among all the othersaccording to the principle that small is beautiful. A mistress ofeuphemism, she had banished words such as 'dwarf', 'midget'and 'half-pint' from her vocabulary and asked her guests toabide by that rule. She even regarded exclamations such as'You could have knocked me down with a feather!' as badform. Leon decided not to mention it to her. There would alwaysbe time for that. But two days later, when they were going outto see friends, there was another incident. They were standingin the lift, which had a large tinted mirror at the back, whenSolange suddenly exclaimed, 'Leon, you scatterbrain, you'veforgotten to put your shoes on! Got your head in the cloudsagain, I suppose.'Leon quivered. Not only had he not forgotten to put hisshoes on, he'd supplemented his heel inserts with two extrainches of leather sole. 'Look at yourself in the mirror, you great ninny.''I assure you I am wearing them, Solange.'

Editorial Reviews

"The bizare details of Leon's miniaturized life are comically rendered, but a darker sensibility is at play. Bruckner in this jeu d'esprit develops a less than whimsical meditation on masculinity, marriage and parenting. " — Emma Hagerstadt in The Independent

From the Publisher