It’s a rare talent that can turn a local government reorganization into a gripping psychodrama. It’s a rarer one still that can make such a novel a better analysis of neoliberal shock therapy and its human consequences than any non-fiction polemic.
But Nicolas Mathieu is exactly that. His three full-length novels respectively hinge upon workplace relations, childhood and romance. But they are united by the setting of post-industrial eastern France, and a preoccupation with a people in search of their lost identity and purpose. Strip away the Citroëns, the Gauloises, and the cafés with late night licenses, and it could equally be the US midwest or the pit villages of north Derbyshire. And strip down to deepest fears and desires, as the author often does, and it could be anywhere.
