The Birthday Party

ISBN: 1945492651

Author: Mauvignier, Laurent

Condition: New

2023 International Booker Prize, LonglistNew York Times Editors' ChoiceA real-time study in crippling self-consciousness, the fragility of normalcy, and the reality of violence.-The New York TimesBuried deep in rural France, little remains of the isolated hamlet of the Three Lone Girls, save a few houses and a curiously assembled quartet: Patrice Bergogne, inheritor of his familys farm; his wife, Marion; their daughter, Ida; and their neighbor, Christine, an artist. While Patrice plans a surprise for his wifes fortieth birthday, inexplicable events start to disrupt the hamlets quiet existence: anonymous, menacing letters, an unfamiliar car rolling up the driveway. And as night falls, strangers stalk the houses, unleashing a nightmarish chain of events.Told in rhythmic, propulsive prose that weaves seamlessly from one consciousness to the next over the course of a day, Laurent Mauvigniers The Birthday Party is a deft unraveling of the stories we hide from others and from ourselves, a gripping tale of the violent irruptions of the past into the present, written by a major contemporary French writer.