"Dieudonné's startling debut tackles dark themes with grace, wit, and sincerity. A deeply disturbing, furiously tender, and darkly comedic debut."—Kirkus Reviews
“Transforming the traditional coming-of-age novel, Adeline Dieudonné’s successful first work is a captivating, unnerving take on emancipation and the hope of escaping violence.”—France-Amérique
“While this is a story about vulnerability and the victims of domestic abuse, it is also a story of courage. Dieudonné’s debut novel, translated terrifically by Roland Glasser is, at once, fearsome and with heart.” —Brigid O’Dea, Irish Times
"Real Life is a raw, dark, and profoundly powerful coming of age tale. Adeline Dieudonné brings to life a heroine for the modern world. And, after you read the first sentence, you won’t be able to leave the girl’s side, not until it ends, all of it.” —Susan Schlesinger, Books on the Square (Providence, RI)
“By turns brutal and subtle, this little gem of a novel packs a deceptive punch. It’s a tale of shattered innocence and the dramatic shift from childhood to puberty to adulthood, though even at its most violent, there is an undeniable thread of optimism that wends throughout. Sibling love, growing pains, goats, alienation, taxidermy—as in real life, it's all here.” —Jake Cumsky-Whitlock, Solid State Books (Washington, DC)
“Brutal and impossible to put down. This young narrator takes you with her through the turbulence that is her family home with a touch of whimsy and then determined strength to save her brother (as well as herself) from the monster that is their father. A quick read that stays with you well beyond the last page.” —Nadine Melahn, CoffeeTree Books (Morehead, KY)
"A magnificent heroine of freedom and intelligence." —Bruno Corty, Le Figaro
"A sense of rhythm, hard-hitting words, and vitriolic humor." —Coline Serreau, director of Chaos
"Always at the limit between the naïveté of a child and the profundity of those of us who have already seen too much." —Véronique Cardi
"It’s an impressive debut novel, poetic and violent at the same time, with great visual force." —Giovanna Canton
"I read the novel in one go. What a hypnotizing voice!" —Cristina de Stefano
"Bitter, raw and fast-paced: a tale that’s filled with a hunger for life." —Alain Lorfévre, La Libre Belgique
"This story is inevitably touching and disturbing, since it meticulously displays the mechanisms of physical and moral domestic violence through a cruel, perverse and violent father. The author’s style is slick, poetic, metaphoric, beautiful and brutal at once, much like life can be, too." —Light and Smell Blog
"When the innocence of fairy tales meets the terror of a Stephen King thriller." —Bernard Lehut, RTL
"A tremendous energy. A new voice. Mind-blowing." —Pierre Assouline, La République des Livres
"Don’t miss out on this debut novel, both cruel and fierce. Adeline Dieudonné makes her entry into literature like a warrior." —Jérôme Garcin, Le Nouvel Observateur
2019-11-11
A young girl comes of age in a house of horrors.
In the Demo, a nondescript prefab development, there is a house where a young girl and her dysfunctional family live. Belgian writer Dieudonné's debut novel, which has already won multiple awards in France, follows an unnamed narrator who fears her father, an abusive big-game hunter; denigrates her mother, a battered wife; and adores Sam, her bright-eyed younger brother. After the two siblings witness a tragedy, their lives are forever changed. Sam retreats from the world and finds comfort in the carcass room where his father's trophies are mounted. The narrator becomes convinced she's living in an alternate reality that she can rewrite: "It made everything seem more bearable." She spends the next few years trying to change the past to save her younger brother—who has stopped smiling, started hurting animals, and become their father's shooting buddy. She studies quantum physics, feels stirrings of forbidden desire, and begins recognizing the dangers of her intelligence and budding body. After a tense moment with her father she has a moment of realization: "I understood that, from now on, just like my mother, I, too, had become a prey." The novel portrays trauma and abuse with both seriousness and a touch of humor. When talking about the way her mother prepares meals, the narrator says, "She did like an amoeba might, with neither creativity nor taste, but lots of mayonnaise." Dieudonné's writing captures momentous and mundane moments with equal insight and beauty: "The houses of the Demo smelled of old damp swimming towels forgotten in a sports bag," and "[the sounds] escaped from her like jets of steam from a pressure cooker." Despite a slightly underwhelming ending, Dieudonné's startling debut tackles dark themes with grace, wit, and sincerity.
A deeply disturbing, furiously tender, and darkly comedic debut.
