Undercurrents: A Novel

by Marie Darrieussecq, Linda Coverdale (Translator)

Overview

An international literary superstar since the publication of her "fascinating and original" (The New York Times Book Review) first novel, Pig Tails, and her "tender, extraordinarily nuanced" (Publishers Weekly) follow-up novel, My Phantom Husband—an immediate number one bestseller in France—Marie Darrieussecq now gives us her greatest triumph to date.

InUndercurrents, a mother and daughter mysteriously disappear to a deserted seaside town in France, as the novel poetically evokes the varied moods and rich palette of the ocean. From seemingly simple events, Darrieussecq deftly plunges the reader into a sensual, surrealistic literary experience grounded in—yet worlds away from—day-to-day reality.

Called "truly inspired" by Le Pointe and "gripping" by Le Monde, Undercurrents fulfills and exceeds our expectations of this talented young author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781565846272
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	03/01/2001
Pages:	114
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Marie Darrieussecqis a graduate of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, and teaches in Lille.

Editorial Reviews

From the epigraph (taken from a Bj rk song) to the final pages, French sensation Marie Darrieussecq's (Pig Tales) Undercurrents (trans. by Linda Coverdale) is tinged with mystery and quiet menace. Without warning, a woman flees with her young daughter to a small, coastal resort town after emptying her and her husband's joint bank account. Someone is pursuing them but who? And why? Told from multiple, often indeterminate perspectives, this short novel though rich with detail does not give up its secrets easily, if at all. It will tantalize some readers but simply frustrate others. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Translated by Coverdale, the 1997 winner of the French American Foundation's Translation Prize, this is an atmospheric novel about a young woman who flees her husband, taking their child with her. The tale is told in a stream-of-consciousness narrative by the characters involved in the drama. The journey begins with mother and child leaving their home secretly and arriving at the beach to camp for the night. Shortly thereafter, they settle in a seaside town for the summer, and the mother takes a lover. The spurned husband sends a private detective out in search of his lost family. Throughout, the descriptions are slow and sensuous. Though Darrieussecq's books (including the recently translated Pig Tales) are best sellers in France, many readers will find that this one feels inconsequential: nothing much happens in a text consisting almost entirely of musings. Of interest to discerning readers. Cathleen A. Towey, Westbury Memorial P.L., NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A woman "kidnaps" her young daughter—or so it initially appears—in this skillfully understated third novel from the young French author of Pig Tales (1997) and My Phantom Husband (1999). But its characters' identities are both shadowy and fluid, and the primary setting (an unidentified deserted seaside resort) is an enigmatic wasteland to which both the fugitives and their pursuers are inexorably drawn—and from which they receive a variety of gorgeously described, suggestive, and eventually explanatory sensory impressions. A beautifully constructed little nightmare: Darrieussecq's best yet.

Kirkus Reviews