Cécile Coulon

Méfiez-vous des enfants sages

Beware of Well-Behaved Children

August 26, 2010
Literature
112 pages
130 × 210 mm
16,50 €
9782878583328
978-2-8785-8332-8
																Cécile Coulon, Méfiez-vous des enfants sages
																Cécile Coulon, Méfiez-vous des enfants sages

She lived in a small town of the South, the kind of place where girls become mothers before they get their driver’s license.

United States, late 80’s.

A young woman leaves her native town to run away from boredom and to find her place elsewhere, somewhere where dreams were possible. When she gets to San Francisco she becomes a waitress, makes friends with the young skaters of the neighborhood, relentlessly reads and rereads Lord of the Flies. A simple, honest and most of all a free life. But the dream ends when she receives a phone call: her mother just died. Forced to go back to her town, she meets her future husband, with whom she will have a daughter, Lua.

The young Lua grows up in this smooth world. She makes friends with the exjunkie Eddie, a disreputable neighbor. Being an expert on sorting things out, she rents her shoes to some of her classmates in exchange for a few bucks, she deals liquorice sticks, lollipops and nougat. She makes friends with her teacher James Freak, « this young teacher with snow white hair » who is missing a finger.

But this pleasant and untroubled life comes to a sudden halt when Lua’s father brings home a tarantula. The spider is a metaphor for adolescence and represents all the fears and disappointments of the adult world.

The author

Since writing her first book at seventeen years old, Cécile Coulon never ceases to surprise and amaze us. In just a few years, she has produced six novels, including Trois saisons d’orage, winner of the Prix des libraires, and a collection of poems (Prix Apollinaire 2017).
Her novel, A Beast in Paradise (Une bête au paradis, L’Iconoclaste, August 2019), was awarded the Prix littéraire Le Monde in 2019.

August 26, 2010
Literature
112 pages
130 × 210 mm
16,50 €
9782878583328
978-2-8785-8332-8