Author:Jean Echenoz
'I'm off', says Félix Ferrer to his wife. 'I'm leaving you'. And closing the door on their suburban home, Ferrer, a creature of appetite, impulse and habit, a man of our times, embarks on a journey to the extremes. A man at Ferrer's time of life should be starting to treat himself - and his heart - carefully, not living the bachelor life in the Paris atelier that doubles as his art gallery. Not weighing up every girl he sees. Not ignoring his doctor's warnings to avoid the very hot and the very cold. And certainly not making for the North Pole in pursuit of a rare cargo of Inuit artefacts.
Soon, back from the merciless Arctic, packed with ex-girlfriends, anxious artists and suspicious creditors, Paris in the summer begins to feel very hot indeed for Ferrier...
In One Year Victoire wakes up one morning to find her boyfriend lying dead beside her. Not wanting to be caught with a corpse, she packs her bags, raids her bank account and makes off, randomly, for the Southwest. And when she has lost her belongings, her money, her looks and almost herself - one year later - the coast is clear for her to come back to Paris. But nothing prepares her for the shock of what greets her return...
Echenoz continues to throw custard pies at literary norms, in particular the machinery of your average novel. But the custartd itself is of a very high quality... An extraordinary book... a fresh and amazingly graceful way of looking at the world
—— Giles Foden , GuardianAll the Pooterish school-boyish humour is perfectly caught by Guido Waldman's excellent translation, which paints a bleak landscape with verve and panache, dextrously juggling rueful nerdiness, cliché and slang without once putting a foot wrong. Here's the novel to pack for that springtime read
—— Michele Roberts , Financial TimesEchenoz offers more delight in each paragraph than a shelf full of blockbusters
—— ScotsmanA sly mixture of intrigue, sexual observation and acid social commentary, created in an atmosphere of relentless suspicion
—— Daily TelegraphIronic, witty, detached, knowing and not unsympathetic... what makes this book so much fun is Echenoz' ability to create plausible characters who do slightly implausible things in familiar settings
—— ObserverHe has not written a better or more skilful farce
—— Financial TimesBritain's leading practitioner of black humour
—— PunchThe year's most impressive debut
—— John Carey , Sunday TimesLike Donna Tartt’s "The Secret History" or a good film noir . . . Jane’s low-key narration has just the right tone to keep readers hooked
—— People magazineThe strength of 'The Lake of Dead Languages' is a silken prose that lures the reader into Goodman’s . . . story of murder, suicide . . . revenge, and madness
—— The Washington Post Book WorldPart suspense, part coming-of-age, and all-enthralling . . . A book that needs the roar of a fire to ward off its psychic chill
—— The Denver Post
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