{"id":8298,"date":"2020-01-27T12:06:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T12:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8298"},"modified":"2020-12-06T12:48:39","modified_gmt":"2020-12-06T12:48:39","slug":"real-life-by-adeline-dieudonne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8298","title":{"rendered":"Real Life by Adeline Dieudonn\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Translated by Roland Glasser<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by World Editions 4 February 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

266pp, paperback, \u00a311.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Somewhat in the tradition of Emma Donoghue\u2019s Room <\/em>and Emily Ruskovitch\u2019s Idaho<\/em>, this dramatically horrific first novel addresses domestic abuse with a combination of cool-eyed, realistic frankness and quite remarkable imagery.<\/p>\n

Adeline Dieudonne\u00e9\u2019s unnamed young female narrator (whom I shall refer to as \u2018N\u2019) lives with her timid mother, her younger brother and their terrifying big-game-hunter father in a house where one room is \u2018stuffed with carcasses\u2019.\u00a0 Among these is a hyena so convincingly alive that she causes terror in anyone who looks into her eyes.\u00a0 \u2018N\u2019 can hear the hyena laughing.<\/p>\n

\u2018N\u2019 tells us in the opening pages that \u2018when my mother got married, she wasn\u2019t frightened yet.\u2019\u00a0 Not long afterwards comes the first of many staggering descriptions of domestic violence: \u2018My mother always ended up on the floor, motionless.\u00a0 Like an empty pillowcase.\u00a0 After that, we knew we had a few weeks of calm ahead.\u2019<\/p>\n

When the father blows the head off the ice-cream man just as \u2018N\u2019 is stretching out her hand for her daily cone, \u2018N\u2019s life takes an even darker turn.\u00a0 Sam, at her side, is so traumatized by the incident that he is transformed into a robot, dead inside.\u00a0 When he turns eight, his father gives him a subscription to the shooting-range and he becomes violent himself, an animal-killer.<\/p>\n

\u2018N\u2019s reaction is to research the possibilities of time travel, so that she can go back in time, change the past, and thereby save everybody.\u00a0 As it happens, she is so precociously bright that a local science professor is persuaded to give her cut-price private lessons. \u00a0All the knowledge in the world cannot alter the facts, and the novel ends as violently as it began.<\/p>\n

\u2018N\u2019s courage stays with the reader as she turns to face the second part of her life\u00a0 –\u00a0 \u2018my real life\u2019\u00a0 –\u00a0 with a mixture of \u2018stuff I had to forget\u2019 and \u2018stuff I had to hold on to\u2019, including her brother\u2019s smile.<\/p>\n

In this fine translation, Dieudonn\u00e9\u2019s effortlessly readable novel packs a notable punch.\u00a0 The serious content is leavened by a fierce, glittering humour (Dieudonn\u00e9 also performs as a stand-up comedian).\u00a0 Published in France in late 2018, it has won many major prizes.\u00a0 One can see why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

Adeline Dieudonne\u00e9\u2019s unnamed young female narrator (whom I shall refer to as \u2018N\u2019) lives with her timid mother, her younger brother and their terrifying big-game-hunter father in a house where one room is \u2018stuffed with carcasses\u2019. Among these is a hyena so convincingly alive that she causes terror in anyone who looks into her eyes. \u2018N\u2019 can hear the hyena laughing […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8298"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8302,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8298\/revisions\/8302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}