Summer of Reckoning
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The story takes place in the suffocating atmosphere of a social housing estate in the south of France. Sixteen-year-old Céline and her sister Jo, fifteen, dream of escaping to somewhere far from their daily routine, far from their surly, alcoholic father and uncaring mother, both struggling to make ends meet. That summer Celine falls pregnant, devastating news that reopens deep family wounds. Those of the mother Severine whose adolescence was destroyed by her early pregnancy and subsequent marriage with Manuel. Those of Manuel, grandson of Spanish immigrants, who takes refuge in alcoholism to escape the open disdain of his in-laws. Faced with Celine’s refusal to name the father, Manuel needs a guilty party and Saïd, a childhood friend of the girls and conveniently Arab, seems to fit the role perfectly. In the suffocating heat of summer Manuel embarks on a drunken mission of revenge. A dark and upsetting account of an ailing society, filled with silent and murderous rage.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
French author Brunet makes her English-language debut with a smoldering psychological thriller that's well written but covers familiar ground. In a town in the south of France, 16-year-old C line is pregnant. Her abusive and alcoholic father, Manuel, can't get her to divulge the name of her lover; her mother, S verine, remains bitter over getting pregnant as a teen herself, and shows little sympathy toward her daughter; and C line's 15-year-old sister, Jo, doesn't even understand why her sister is that interested in sex. As Manuel's desire for information increases, he focuses his rage on Sa d, a friend of the girls and one of the few non-European people in town. Violence ensues. Though the turmoil C line and her family go through is often tense, some readers may be uncomfortable that C line is often described in terms that border on the fetishistic ("her denim shorts cut so high the fold between her buttocks and thighs opened and closed with every step she took"). Brunet has a lot to say about sex and society, but isn't necessarily saying anything new.