Tout part à la nuit Everything Fades in the Night

In a style both incisive and moving, Louis Cabaret recounts the tragedy of a family caught up in a game far beyond them. A finely observed first novel.

Tiffanie’s daily life is on shaky ground. She divorced after her husband was sentenced to seven-years imprisonment following a botched robbery and is bringing up their two children on her own. Chris, the eldest, is a violent, unmanageable teenager. Joris, the youngest, still retains all the sweetness of childhood. During the week, Tiffanie is a home-care visitor for the elderly. On weekends, she meets up with friends and, somewhat against her will, her husband’s buddies, for boozy parties.
So, when a man approaches her at the end of a Bastille Day dance, she is seduced by his self-assurance. Marvin quickly carves a place for himself within the family. He moves in with them, supports Tiffanie, takes part in family meals, tries to get Chris back on the rails, and even wins over his father’s friends. Yet nothing much is known about Marvin himself. As for Joris, with the clearsightedness of an eight-year old, he swears he can see something nasty lurking behind his smile.
At the same time, from behind bars, Tiffanie’s ex-husband starts proceedings for his children to visit him in prison. When Chris and Joris agree to meet him, he hopes to reassert his paternal role. But everything changes when he’s granted a prison leave…

Louis Cabaret was born in Le Mans in 1985. He worked for several years with children suffering behavioral problems. In 2014, he published Paul Courbelieu, Peintre (Tituli Publications), a novella about an imaginary friendship between Paul Cézanne and a young carpenter. Everything Fades in the Night is his first novel.