Zinc Heads | Maraud

At the corner of the zinc bar, we come across Paul, Gus, Benoît, Julot, Chico, Alice... and others, their disjointed names woven throughout a life of downfall, travelers without luggage who drop anchor in random dives where the clientele often constitutes their only family. Even though Clément Maraud's series of stories lacks unity of time and place, the café counter serves as a support, even a refuge for these various characters in the ultimate loneliness that brings them together. Drunkards and beggars, metaphysical alcoholics, paupers, dreamers, exiles, elderly forgotten by society, they only share what they invent: uncertain secrets, better days, exquisite intoxications, games without chance, abandoned roles, extravagant tales...These lives running on empty blend their diverse characters in the awareness of a common misfortune, a catalog of ordinary destinies gathering, contrary to the usual literary device, subjects without a story, belonging to that side of the world so common that one can live there without thinking about it. A dozen stories that bring together, in settings both familiar and different, colorful, sensitive, and discreet characters that we often encounter without truly seeing them, a snapshot of humanity.