SONG OF FALSE LOVERS - Softcover

Germain, Sylvie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1903517257 ISBN 13: 9781903517253

Publisher: Dedalus Limited, 2015

Synopsis

Laudes-Marie Neigedaout, an albino foundling abandoned by her unknown mother one August night on the eve of the Second World War, spends her first few years with a community of nuns. But her presence among them is not wholly welcome, and in 1944 the little girl is dispatched into the outside world. This marks the start of what proves to be a lifelong odyssey that brings her into contact over the years with an extraordinary array of fascinating characters. She becomes the compassionate chronicler and plumbs the mysterious depths of the human heart.

About this title

From Booklist:

Abandoned as an infant in a red-stained raspberry crate, the albino baby named Laudes-Marie spends early childhood in a convent as World War II breaks out. But the five-year-old is thrown out at war's end for "stealing" the Baby Jesus she wanted to play with. A kind nun places her among other war orphans and refugees whom old Leontine, her sister, is raising. As several years pass, parents reclaim the children, leaving only strange-looking Laudes-Marie. When Leontine suddenly dies, Laudes-Marie is placed into service with an innkeeping couple. When the woman of the couple slaughters her husband, Laudes-Marie is removed to work as a char in a hotel. Raped and impregnated during a brief holiday, she spontaneously aborts. So go her antipicaresque adventures, which she relays in a straightforward, first-person narrative suffused with authenticity and pathetic, heartbreaking comedy. Christine Donougher translates Germain's French smoothly and compellingly, assuring that this horrific story's resolution in solitude resonates powerfully. Whitney Scott
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About this edition

• Publisher: Dedalus Limited
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1903517257
• ISBN 13: 9781903517253
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 100