A postwar generation's struggle to survive links the characters and themes of Hadrien Laroche's first novel, now translated into English by Dalkey Archive Press. The stories of the three main characters – Hannah, née Bloch; Helianthe, née Bouttetruie; and Henry, né Berg – are related by a lost traveller who takes shelter in their worlds and acts as witness to their pain. The characters have been orphaned in their own unique ways. Hannah lost her father to a Nazi concentration camp. Helianthe has an incurable disease that affects her sanity, cutting her off from the outside world. Henry is a teenager who has severed ties with his parents. Laroche is a French writer and philosopher, a former student of the semiotics expert Jacques Derrida. It is no surprise, then, that this short and finely written book is a journey into the postmodern world, where the writer and his relationship with words becomes as much a part of the story as the characters themselves.
