TOWARDS VIOLENCE

Blandine Rinkel

(Fayard, 378 pages, 2022)

***TRANSLATION SAMPLE AVAILABLE HERE***

***2023 Winner of the Grand prix des lectrices Elle***

Lou and her father, Gérard, share a special bond. To her adoring eyes—and that of her mother—he is larger than life, a fabulous storyteller who knows how to concoct imaginary worlds. A dedicated but merciless coach, he builds his young daughter’s endurance and self-reliance through vigorous physical activities. Armed with a carnivorous smile—as well as a gun in his night table drawer—the jovial and virile police officer loves playing childish games with his little girl. Yet despite their enchanted complicity, Lou experiences terror when they play even the most innocent of games together. Can the unmistakable tenderness she sees in his eyes protect her against the seething violence of his unpredictable and cruel outbursts? And what if Gérard’s buoyant and joyful disposition holds back an old trauma that threatens to engulf him, and them?

Molded by the codes of her father’s brand of masculinity, Lou becomes a professional dancer living in London, who practices her art like a combat sport. She relishes the military discipline it requires, the discreet and subtle violence it inflicts on her body. Sexually, as well, she prefers risk-taking games. Until the day Lou realizes that what she has been trained to think of as strength, vitality, provocation—all things transmitted by Gérard—masks a somber heritage that she must now contend with if she is to move forward in her life.

Through the riveting portrait of a young woman, Blandine Rinkel’s subtle and sensitive writing brilliantly explores the baggage of what we inherit from our all-too-human parents and what it takes to free ourselves from it. Towards Violence embraces the complex repercussions of a childhood lived in the shadow of joy and fear with heart-wrenching and brutal honesty.

Blandine Rinkel is a multi-talented artist, a singer, dancer, actor, and writer. In 2017, she published her acclaimed first novel, L’abandon des prétentions (Fayard), a finalist in the Prix Goncourt for debut novels, followed by Le nom secret des choses (Fayard, 2019).