A brilliant literary debut: Les maisons vides reveals the voice, sensitivity and novelistic talent of a 30-year-old author.
From the first stammering hours to adolescence, from immaturity to the blossoming of a gymnast’s and then a woman’s body, one that suddenly attracts men’s attention, we follow Gabrielle on a path that is as chaotic as it is intoxicating. With a prodigious energy, Gabrielle grows, frees herself and fights against the ready-made paths of her rural environment, and what she calls her “spiders” : a powerful cough that impedes her breathing.
Beyond Gabrielle, and through her voice, it is the destinies of all the women in the novel, a choir of sacrificed or unloved generations—the great-grandmother, a grandmother, the mother—that are at the center of Les maisons vides.
With this unique first novel, carried by a style that combines panache and delicacy, Laurine Thizy has revealed herself as a promising discovery.
