Description

THE FIRST NOVEL BY NICOLAS MATHIEU, WINNER OF THE 2018 PRIX GONCOURT

Nicolas Mathieu’s gripping first novel is the story of a world that has come to an end. With a girl, a gun and acres of snow.

When a factory that employs most of a small town is scheduled to close – to the despair of the workers and disdain of the overlords – things start to fall apart. The disenfranchised factory workers have nothing left to lose. Martel, the trade union rep with innumerable tattoos and Bruce, the body-builder addicted to steroids resort to desperate measures. A bungled kidnapping on the streets of Strasbourg goes horribly wrong and they find themselves falling prey to the machinations of the criminal underworld.

“[An] uncompromising portrait of a working class eaten up by the frustration and resentment of having been abandoned, and sinking into alcoholism and racism”. — Paris Match

Publisher Review

PRAISE FOR AND THEIR CHILDREN AFTER THEM: 'Deeply felt . . . An exceptional portrait of youth * Irish Times * [A] page-turner of a novel . . . I couldn't put the book down * New York Times * Mathieu won France's prestigious Goncourt prize for this absorbing Nineties narrative set in a French valley community left stranded by the decline of industry . . . a multi-viewpoint panorama of thwarted aspirations, spiced with breathy sex scenes and nostalgic detail * Mail on Sunday * And Their Children After Them finds space for beauty, for tenderness, for hope . . . you might think of a Ken Loach movie with a soundtrack by Bruce Springsteen . . . an elegiac anthem * Financial Times * The plot, involving drug dealing and simmering violence . . . keeps you turning the pages. * Sunday Times *