VIOLAINE HUISMAN

«Mamá tenía en los labios aquel perfume a muerte cuando venía a arroparme por las noches. Mamá nunca ocultó a sus amantes, y el desfile permanente de especímenes improbables le daba a nuestra casa un

An indelible portrait of a brilliant, beautiful, mad and maddening woman, expressing the joy of holding her mercurial attention and also the terrible cost of that intimacy...No-one who reads this captivating book will ever forget MamanAndrew SolomonA prize-winning tour de force when it came out in France, this brilliant translation of Violaine Huismans witty, immersive autofiction showcases a Parisian childhood with a charismatic, depressed parent (Oprah Daily. Beautiful and magnetic, Catherine, aka Maman, smokes too much, drives too fast, laughs too hard and loves too extravagantly. During a joyful and chaotic childhood, her daughter Violaine wouldnt have it any other way.But when Maman is hospitalised after a third divorce and breakdown, everything changes. Even as Violaine and her sister long for their mothers return, once shes back Mamans violent mood swings and flagrant disregard for personal boundaries soon turn their home into an emotional landmine. As the story of Catherines own traumatic childhood and coming of age unfolds, the pieces come together to form an indelible portrait of a mother as irresistible as she is impossible, as triumphant as she is transgressive.With spectacular ferocity of language, a streak of dark humor and stunning emotional bravery, The Book of Mother is an exquisitely wrought story of a mothers dizzying heights and devastating lows, and a daughter who must hold her memory close in order to let go.

Marvelous, superbly affective ... A labor of love, which considers primal conflict [between a mother and her daughter] with a tender psychological acuity New Yorker

A gorgeous, critically acclaimed debut novel about a young woman coming of age with a dazzling yet damaged mother who lived and loved in extremes - in the bestselling tradition of Jeannette Wallss The Glass Castle.A prize-winning tour de force when it came out in France, Violaine Huismans remarkable debut novel is about a daughters inextinguishable love for her magnetic, mercurial mother. Beautiful and charismatic, Catherine, aka Maman, smokes too much, drives too fast, laughs too hard and loves too extravagantly. During a joyful and chaotic childhood in Paris, her daughter Violaine wouldnt have it any other way.But when Maman is hospitalised after a third divorce and breakdown, everything changes. Even as Violaine and her sister long for their mothers return, once shes back Mamans violent mood swings and flagrant disregard for personal boundaries soon turn their home into an emotional landmine. As the story of Catherines own traumatic childhood and coming of age unfolds, the pieces come together to form an indelible portrait of a mother as irresistible as she is impossible, as triumphant as she is transgressive.With spectacular ferocity of language, a streak of dark humor and stunning emotional bravery, The Book of Mother

A gorgeous, critically acclaimed debut novel about a young woman coming of age with a dazzling yet damaged mother who lived and loved in extremes - in the bestselling tradition of Jeannette Wallss Th

"Mon père était un homme d'une autre génération, aurait-on dit pour excuser sa misogynie ou son pédantisme, un homme dont les succès justifiaient l'arrogance, dont l'affabilité surprenait autant que

Longlisted for the 2022 International Booker PrizeA New York Times Notable BookA Library Journal Best Book of 2021A marveloussuperbly effective (The New Yorker) debut novel about a young woman coming of age with a dazzling yet damaged mother who lived and loved in extremes.Met by rave reviews in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and more, this stunning translation of Violaine Huismans witty, immersive autofiction showcases a Parisian childhood with a charismatic, depressed parent (Oprah Daily). Beautiful and magnetic, Catherine, a.k.a. Maman, smokes too much, drives too fast, laughs too hard, and loves too extravagantly, and her daughter Violaine wouldnt have it any other way.But when Maman is hospitalized after a third divorce and a breakdown, everything changes. Even as Violaine and her sister long for their mothers return, once shes back Mamans violent mood swings and flagrant disregard for personal boundaries soon turn their home into an emotional landmine. As the story of Catherines own traumatic childhood and adolescence unfolds, the pieces come together to form an indelible portrait of a mother as irresistible as she is impossible, as triumphant as she is transgressive. With spectacular ferocity of language, a streak of dark humor, and stunning emotional bravery, The Book of Mother is an exquisitely wrought story of a mothers dizzying heights and devastating lows, and a daughter who must hold her memory close in order to surrender, and finally move on.

"C’est pas dangereux par là-bas ? À ton avis, bibi ? Je n’étais pas vraiment au courant du conflit au Sahara occidental avant de traverser la région en autocar. L’ampleur des problèmes de terrorisme

"Maman était une force de la nature et elle avait une patience très limitée pourles jérémiades de gamines douillettes. Nos plaies, elle les désinfectait à l’alcoolà 90 °, le Mercurochrome apparemment

Ça ne voulait rien dire d’abord, maniaco-dépressive. Ou si, ça voulait dire que maman pouvait monter dans les tours, des tours que je visualisais aux angles d’un château fort, des donjons, au sommet

"Ce n’était pas si dingue après tout de parcourir le Sahara, puisque j’attendais, le regard rivé sur l’ampoule d’un sablier, que le temps efface la furie de cet amour, que les braises se fassent cend

Paris était le siège historique du conflit affectif entre mes parents, l’épicentre de l’écartèlement entre leurs influences, leurs héritages. Paris était le foyer ancestral où j’étais la fille de : l

Violaine Huisman explores and contests the myths surrounding the great men of her family, using fiction where the official archives fall silent. The Monuments of Paris is a moving elegy for her accomplished, mercurial, outrageous fatherand a beautiful act of disobedience. Ben Lerner, author of Transcription and The Topeka SchoolIn Violaine Huismans captivating novel, the real monuments of Paris are not its buildings, but its peoplea grand, multigenerational family saga, blending the history of France with intimate personal narratives. Anne Berest, author of The PostcardNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by Literary HubA remarkable novel drawn from life about a Frenchwomans efforts to come to terms with the legacy of her father and grandfather, powerful forces who left a mark on their countrys culture but whose incorrigible womanizing also left a complex mark on their wives and childrenViolaine Huisman grew up in Paris with her beautiful, bipolar mother the subject of Huismans acclaimed debut novel The Book of Mother and her iconoclastic, flamboyant father, whose self-dramatization made him a formidable raconteur and a questionable parent. The one constant in her fathers personal narrative was his obsession with his childhood during the Vichy regime in France and of his father Georges, long dead, a Belgian Jew whose heroic and tragic biography had taken on the trappings of family myth. In The Monuments of Paris, Huisman transforms these complex layers of history into a moving fiction about exile and belonging, about the lies families are built on and the truths they hold dear.As the novel opens, Violaine returns to Paris from her adopted home of New York City to visit her dying father for the last time. And as he once again tells the story of his fathers rise and fall during the Second World War, Violaine becomes herself obsessed with this myth of her grandfather Georgesand with the nearly erased story of the most significant of his many mistresses, a beautiful and aristocratic woman named Choute, who bears a strange resemblance to her own mother. With the help of a local historian, she sets out to hunt down the truth as it might be known, and in so doing creates the necessary and deeply compelling fiction that is this singular book.In prose as elegant as it is precise, The Monuments of Paris draws a haunting portrait of twentieth-century France through the outsized ambitions, infidelities, and tragedies of the authors own family, both real and imagined.

FUGITIVE PARCE QUE REINE