Description

** Selected as a Book of the Year in 2017 in the Guardian and Irish Times **

‘Before I had a chance to rebel against the world of my childhood, that world rebelled against me. In truth, confronting my parents, my social class, its poverty, racism and brutality came second. From early on I provoked shame and even disgust from my family and others around me. The only option I had was to get away somehow. This book is an effort to understand all that.’

Edouard Louis grew up in Hallencourt, a village in northern France where many live below the poverty line. His bestselling debut novel about life there, The End of Eddy, has sparked debate on social inequality, sexuality and violence.

It is an extraordinary portrait of escaping from an unbearable childhood, inspired by the author’s own. Written with an openness and compassionate intelligence, ultimately, it asks, how can we create our own freedom?

Publisher Review

"When new voices come from underrepresented constituencies, there's always the hope of a new perspective... I can read Edouard Louis and know something of what it means to grow up in extreme poverty in contemporary France" -- Zadie Smith * Observer * "When new voices come from underrepresented constituencies, there's always the hope of a new perspective... I can read Edouard Louis and know something of what it means to grow up in extreme poverty in contemporary France" -- Zadie Smith * Observer * "Even in the wake of Knausgaard and Ferrante it is hard to find a literary phenomenon that has swept Europe quite like the autobiographical project of Edouard Louis" * LitHub * "An extraordinary autobiographical novel about class, violence and sexuality in France. It's a vivid, often brutal but immensely touching book that restores my faith in the power of literature" -- Tash Aw "This is the courageous story of an outsider, in equal parts frank, provocative and compelling" -- Laura Garmeson * Financial Times * "Stunning... A startling use of the extremely personal to convey a message that is universally relevant" * Vice * "An intelligent, revelatory book" -- Claire Lowdon * The Sunday Times * "The real achievement of the book is not its reportage, but its attitude. It is written entirely without self pity - and, astonishingly, without judgment... courageous, necessary and deeply touching" -- Neil Bartlett * Guardian * "It is a brutal, forceful, gripping read. There is no hipster posing, no ironic distance; its anger and rawness make it refreshing. He has something to say - and it's worth listening to... I suspect we'll be hearing more of Edouard Louis. He is that relatively rare thing - a novelist with something to say and a willingness to say it, without holding back" -- Robbie Millen * The Times * "A candid, necessary call against conventional definitions of masculinity and the fear of difference" -- Claire Kohda Hazelton * Observer * "Extraordinary... In prose that revels in describing pain and deprivation, moments of extreme tenderness surface even in the midst of violence" -- Tash Aw * London Review of Books * "The End of Eddy portrays a childhood marked by fear and violence... His use of...language...gives it a devastating emotional force. To write the novel is at once an act of solidarity and an act of vengeance." -- Garth Greenwell * New Yorker * "An intensely autobiographical novel that spares no one...this young French writer has captured a candid, unaffected voice that resonates... Publisher's hype all to often fails to deliver, but not this time" -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times * "The book's directness about violence, sex, his family, and those in his neighbourhood is stunning. But it is also far more than a just memoir, it is a scathing condemnation of the cycle of poverty and violence inflicted upon those he grew up with, those same people who tormented him for much of his early life" -- Bruno Bayley * Vice * "Michael Lucy's translation conveys both the scorching sorrow and the cool intelligence of a book that - half-misery memoir, half radical tract - finds a voice for so much pain. The scapegoat of Hallencourt has become its spokesman" * The Economist * "It's more than an unflinching autobiography... it's a sociological study, holding up a mirror to working-class life and the norms of masculinity" * Shortlist * "Remarkably brave... This is a devastating achievement" -- Catherine Humble * The Times Literary Supplement * "A remarkable book which looks at its subject with, in equal parts, revulsion, lust, love and anger. The clarity with which Louis examines the interweaving causes and effects of masculinity, adolescence, shame and community on the working class are unparalleled in anything I've read before. It is ultimately the story of growing up as an economic and sexual outsider; a vital piece of work for our time" -- Andrew McMillan "The End of Eddy is lean and poignant and masterfully tells the tale of growing up gay, poor, and bullied. No one has told this story as eloquently " -- Edmund White "Like a cannonball spilled off the side of a ship, Edouard Louis makes straight for the deeps. The End of Eddy is heart-crushing, soul-stabbing, astonishing, exhilarating. Edouard Louis is exactly the kind of writer we need right now: honest, fearless and, yes, tough" -- Laird Hunt "Edouard Louis speaks of violence, both social and familial, with tremendous force and feeling. Revelatory, queerly tough, as intellectual as it is impolite, The End of Eddy is a book to shake you up" -- Justin Torres "A bracingly pitiless account of the psychic and physical violence that lies at the root of masculine identity. Louis's remarkably visceral story of growing up queer in working class France quickly transcends its setting precisely because it delivers us into it with such emotional force" -- Adam Haslett "In stark, unsentimental prose Louis... unblinkingly documents the violence, masochism and racism of rural France in a book that pulses with power" -- Donal O'Donoghue * RTE Guide * "Edouard has produced a critical study of the conservatism of small communities, and an exploration of how we reconcile our individual nature with what is expected of us" * UK Press Syndication * "An absorbing story... It's become food for thought for the masses, a type of which the political elite never approve" -- Carina McNally * Irish Examiner * "A scarifying joy" -- Philip Hensher * Observer * "A savage account of growing up poor, gay and victimised in rural France." -- Justine Jordan * Guardian *