Their Children After Them By Nicolas Mathieu | Actes Sud

August 1992. A lost valley quelque part in the East, blast furnaces that no longer burn, a lake, a hot afternoon. Anthony is fourteen years old, and with his cousin, to kill boredom, he decides to steal a canoe and go see what is happening on the other side, on the famous beach of the naked bottoms. In the end, it will be Anthony's first love, the first summer, the one that decides everything else. It will be the drama of life that begins.

With this book, Nicolas Mathieu writes the novel of a valley, of an era, of adolescence, the political story of a youth that must find its way in a world that is dying. Four summers, four moments, from Smells Like Teen Spirit to the 98 World Cup, to tell the story of lives at full speed in this France of the in-between, medium-sized cities and suburban areas, the bush and the concrete ZAC. The France of Picon and Johnny Hallyday, of funfairs and Intervilles, of men worn out at work and faded lovers at twenty. A country far from the counters of globalization, caught between nostalgia and decline, decency and rage.

"INITIALLY, WE COULD TRY THIS HYPOTHESIS : a novel is always written at the crossroads of wounds. Here, I would see three, let's say my own.
First, adolescence. I was that child who finishes, who dreams of going out with the most beautiful girl in the room, and wants his share of the cake. And then the most beautiful girl doesn't want to know anything, the world remains elusive, time passes and that's still the worst. There will be summers, flirtations, hair that grows, voice that changes. It will be the most beautiful of life, and the cruelest too. In a story, I'll try to put words to that, the scar from which it all begins.
The other scourge would be that of social issues and distances. When I was little, I was told a lie, that the world was offered to me as it was, fair, transparent, where there is a will, there is a way. But one day, perhaps thanks to books, the veil was torn and I began to understand. This lesson of gaps, legacies and distinctive signs, this truth of places and hierarchies, will be my fuel.
Finally, there is this departure. I was born into a world that I wanted to escape at all costs. The world of funfairs and Picon, of Johnny Hallyday and the pavilions, the world of low-income earners, men exhausted at the turbin and lovers faded at twenty-five. I'll never really be in this world again, I've succeeded in my job. And yet, I can only talk about him. So I wrote this novel, because I am this voluntary orphan. »

N. M.