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Today, “Blackwater: T1 La Crue” by Michael McDowell, published on April 7, 2022 by Éditions Monsieur Toussaint Louverture.
Emily Café Powell, contributor to the 20 Minutes
Books reading group
, recommends
Blackwater
: T1 La Crue
by Michael McDowell, published on April 7, 2022 by Éditions Monsieur Toussaint Louverture.
His favorite quote:
If the water had risen so high, how had this woman managed to survive?
Why this book?
Because it's a real editorial phenomenon
and it would be a shame to miss it!
Monsieur Toussaint Louverture is updating these novels, which first appeared on the American market in 1983, with one volume every two weeks.
The French publisher has been working on it since 2018, respecting the pace of publication and the result is there!
Because beyond the careful description of the reconstruction
of a small town, Michael McDowell demonstrates a great sense of the murky, brilliantly instilling small touches of macabre and horror.
Because its fantastic saga was such a success
in the United States that the process will inspire Stephen King (one of the first admirers of McDowell) for the publication of
The Green Line
, ten years later.
Because if this fantastic saga in six volumes
pleased Stephen King (also a specialist in small communities frozen in time), it will obviously appeal to fans of the latter as the whole is mastered and brilliant!
Because this first volume of a matriarchal saga
follows the Caskey family over several generations in the unusual form of the soap opera.
Narrative efficiency and final cliffhanger are of course required!
Because unpublished to date in French,
Blackwater
, translated
by Yoko Lacour and Hélène Charrier, is published by Monsieur Toussaint Louverture in an edition with a sublime retro aesthetic.
Thanks to the illustrations of Pedro Oyarbide, the saga, although in pocket format, shines with a thousand lights!
The essentials in 2 minutes
The plot.
The town of Perdido, Alabama was devastated by a major flood.
Four days after the disaster, young heir Oscar Caskey finds a survivor in the still partially submerged hotel.
Who is she ?
Characters.
A mysterious survivor with no past, Elinor Dammert crystallizes all the attention, especially that of the young Oscar, to the chagrin of the matriarch of the Caskey family, the formidable and terrible Mary-Love.
Places.
Perdido is a small town lost in the depths of Alabama.
Its only distinguishing features?
Its sawmills, and the two capricious rivers that surround it and threaten it... The city is trying to rebuild itself after a devastating flood, but the threat remains...
The time.
The story takes place in 1919, which gives an old-fashioned charm to the novel.
The shadow of the Great War is not far away, and the Roaring Twenties have not yet reached the town...
The author.
Michael McDowell (1950-1999) was a very prolific author who wrote nearly thirty novels in a single decade.
This book was read with
passion for the plot and admiration for the sublime edition proposed by Monsieur Toussaint Louverture.
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