Luc Lang
Luc Lang est l’auteur d’une douzaine de romans, dont Mille six cents ventres, prix Goncourt des lycéens, La Fin des paysages, Mother, Au commencement du septième jour et La Tentation...
L AUTOROUTE
Auteur
Parution :
20/08/2014
Collection :
La Bleue
MOTORWAY
“I was just wondering whether I should carry on waiting for the last train from Armentières or look for a hotel room in this small town blanketed in early snow, which was already turning grey and slushy, when she and her boyfriend came up to me. She must have known from my rather lost expression that now was the time to come into my life, that anything was possible, and she would see it through, right down to the icy shiver that I still often and inevitably feel.”
She is Thérèse, he is Lucien, a couple whom life could never have brought together without the death of an aunt who bequeathed a property on the outskirts of Orchies, close to the motorway, on the edge of the fields. Fred, the narrator, is a seasonal worker who spends autumn nights on the northern plains at the wheel of a harvester, unearthing hectares of sugar beet with a head full of jazz melodies that convince him he’ll be a great saxophonist one day, like his uncle Frédéric. And now he’s trapped by this couple, gradually sucked into their lives and their nocturnal secrets, a prisoner in their ruined palace, and he should escape but he’s already under the spell of their tentacle-like personalities...
With Motorway (and its blues and jazz soundtrack) Luc Lang gives us a novel whose outlandish language, characters and situations are as mesmerising as Thérèse and Lucien, and the thrum of the motorway itself, as it depicts a simple meeting that is a one-way ticket to adventure.
Luc Lang is the author of nearly a dozen novels, collections of short stories and essays on contemporary art and literature. These include Mille six cents ventres (winner of the 1998 Goncourt des Lycéens), La fin des paysages (2006) and Mother (2012).
« C’est à l’instant précis où je me demandais s’il fallait encore attendre le dernier train d’Armentières ou chercher une chambre d’hôtel dans cette petite ville baignée d’une neige précoce, déjà grise et liquide, qu’elle m’aborda avec son compagnon. »
Elle c’est Thérèse, lui c’est Lucien, un couple que la vie n’aurait pu réunir sans le décès d’une tante et l’héritage de sa propriété à la sortie d’Orchies, tout près de l’autoroute, au bord des champs. Fred, le narrateur, est un saisonnier, il passe ses nuits d’automne dans les plaines du Nord, au volant d’une arracheuse à déterrer des hectares de betteraves, et dans sa tête résonnent des mélodies de jazz qui lui donnent la certitude qu’un jour il sera un grand saxophoniste. Et le voici capturé par ce couple, englué dans leur vie en douce et ses secrets nocturnes, prisonnier de leur palais en ruine d’où il faudrait s’enfuir s’il n’était pas déjà sous l’hypnose de leur tentaculaire humanité...
144 pages
Format :
135 x 215 mm
EAN :
9782234075450
Prix :
18.00 €
