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  • Today, "Les tormentés" by Lucas Belvaux published on August 19, 2022 by Editions Alma publishers.

KRISS55, contributor to the 20 Minutes Books reading group, recommends

Les tormentés

by Lucas Belvaux, published on August 19, 2022 by Alma publishers.

His favorite quote:

War does not teach courage, it teaches men that they are mortal.

Nothing else.

But courage has nothing to do with death, it often takes more to live than to die, more to look at the world as it is and accept people as they are.

Why this book?

  • Because Lucas Belvaux installs

    an equivocal climate made up of tensions and ambiguities.

  • Because, for his first novel,

    the filmmaker shows a talent for unadorned, dry and direct writing.

  • Because the characters,

    with their torments, generate an agonizing climate as they revisit friendship, love, parenthood.

  • Because we follow,

    with questioning, the thoughts of the characters who evolve as we approach the inevitable outcome of the hunt.

The essentials in 2 minutes

The plot.

A woman who lives off her late husband's pension and two men who had lost sight of each other, make a pact in order to prepare for a manhunt which will take place in six months.

The Huntress Widow will then have a month to hunt down and kill one of the two.

Characters.

Skender, a former mercenary, who has foundered and lives on the streets.

Max, Madame's handyman.

Madam, huntress, who lives on the income of her deceased husband.

Marion, Skender's wife, separated.

Jordi and Dylan, children of Skender and Marion.

Places.

In Paris, in Romania, in a forest between Bistrica and Cluj: the place of hunting, in a village of Corbières: places of life of Marion and her children.

The time.

The novel takes place over six months, in our time.

The author.

At 60, Lucas Belvaux is known as a Belgian actor, director and screenwriter.

He has directed ten feature films.

The Tormented

is his first novel.

This book was read with

the feeling of a reading different from all that I had already read.

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