Everyday Life - Softcover

Salvayre, Lydie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564783499 ISBN 13: 9781564783493

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press, 2006

Synopsis

The hiring of a new secretary shouldn't be a big deal--just a slight a change in the office environment. But for the protagonist of this novel, it is a declaration of war, a call to arms: "The new secretary has only been here two days," she says, "and I'm already talking about evil, a word I shouldn't even be using--arming myself for battle and choosing my weapons." Her quiet life of sacrifice and service has been rudely disrupted by the new hire, and she is not--despite the advice of her doctor, her neighbors, and her daughter--about to leave it at that. Instead, sabotage, alcohol, and kindness become the arsenal in a conflict fought across copy rooms and office parties. But the humor is undercut by a sadness, a sense of defeat that makes this slim novel resonate with the injustice of our increasingly impersonal, corporate world.

About this title

About the Author:

Lydie Salvayre, daughter of refugees from the Spanish Civil War, grew up in the south of France, where she received a degree in psychiatry. In her mid-forties she published her first novel, The Declaration. She has since published nine other books, including Everyday Life and The Power of Flies, and has received numerous awards, including the Prix Hermes and the Prix Novembre.

From Publishers Weekly:

A longtime secretary at a French marketing firm is sent gradually over the edge by the newly arrived competition in French novelist Salvayre's (The Company of Ghosts) bitterly comic 1999 novel. After 32 years of service, the loyal, widowed Madame Suzanne Barette can barely endure the vulgar, blowsy new blond secretary. Madam Barette's diaristic diatribes form the book's short chapters; she prides herself on being restrained, even fanatically polite, especially when crossed by her resentful daughter, gossiping apartment neighbors and prickly cleaning lady. The new secretary, however, lays bare Barette's position as the anachronism in the office, and reveals her troubled relationship with her married daughter (who hates Barette for her emotional coldness, but married a condescending doctor exactly like her mother). Salvayre marvelously conveys the aged narrator's paranoia and impotence, as well as her grotesquely funny antagonist's bigotry and stupidity. Salvayre's wicked, slender portrayal is cold comfort for cubicle workers of all stripes.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1564783499
• ISBN 13: 9781564783493
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 119