Farewells

A unique and poignant variation on the theme of the death of a father, Farewells is a rich story carried by a style that combines violence and discretion, pain and humour. The great power of the text is that it manages to capture in so few pages a family circle and a personal story which unfolds over thirty years.

Extract « Happiness can be recognised from a distance; when it disappears from view, a heart knows that it beat for real the day when the break came — without imbalance, symmetry would have no meaning — two hearts only hear they’re beating as one the moment they fall out of synch, we’re made that way; in love, contrast remains our only unit of measure, our yardstick of sadness and, by a virtually physical law, we’re condemned to pick ourselves up or to shrivel up according to our latest lost. »

Patrice Lelorain is a writer with a demanding and free style. The author of seven books — journalism and novels — he wrote a weekly column in the Nouvel Observateur’s ‘City Section’.

Revenants (novel, La Table ronde, 2011), Quatre uppercuts (short stories, La Table ronde, 2008), Le Rire des gitans (short story, Les Episodes, n° 18, 2003), Roi des lions (short story, Les Episodes, n° 16-17, 2003) Saccages (journalism, Ed. du Rocher, 2002), Colères (journalism, Ed. Verticales, 2000), Off (novel, Ed. Climats, 1998), Quatre uppercuts (short story, Revue Perpendiculaire, n° 10, 1998), Paris, section urbaine (journalism, La Différence, 1996), Off (extract, L’Infini, n° 52, 1995), B.B.B. (short story, Quai Voltaire Revue Littéraire, n° 12, 1994), La Légende de Muhammad Ali (biography, Denoël, 1992), and Quick-Sandwich (novel, Calmann-Lévy, 1991).