Heatwave

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The blurb immediately gave me goosebumps, a seventeen-year-old who finds another boy killing himself, and decides in a split second, to bury the boy. The descriptions of the French campsite setting were fab, I could really picture the scenes perfectly. Over the next 24 hours, Leo wanders around the campsite like a sleepwalker, haunted by guilt and fear. Perhaps this was the teenager’s own truth but it’s not what happened as presented to us and it just made me think I’d spent the book in the company of someone rather stupid. It's hot, he's surrounded by highly unlikable horny teenagers and we spend a torturous couple of days with him as events play out.

He had done that on his own and, to judge from the expression on his face, he might have changed his mind. If so, could Leo be an unreliable narrator and, like in Camus’ novel, the death that occurs is a murder - did Leo actually murder Oscar, because he was jealous of his being with Luce, the girl he fancies, and Leo distanced himself from the crime like he distances himself from everything else in his life, pretending the swings killed him instead? A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full. But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries.Leonard is 17 and hates having to spend the summer holidays with his parents in a tent on a giant, hot camping in Les Landes full of shallow people enjoying themselves. For instance, the book begins very late one night with Leo watching an acquaintance hang himself on a play structure at the popular family beach/campsite where their families were holidaying in the summer of 2018. Here’s a book that reminds us in no uncertain terms that film noir would not exist without the French. Disoriented by the oppressive heat, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce, Leonard spends the ensuing hours trying not to unravel. L’atmosfera del campeggio, la musica martellante sparata dagli altoparlanti, gli annunci ripetuti, gli animatori ossessivi, il senso di perenne festa, la vacanza che impone il divertimento a ogni costo… Niente di questo aiuta Léonard, che appare sempre più un pesce fuori dall’acqua.

A short but powerful novella that explores rumination on death and guilt as interrupters of normal quotidian life. Leonard is an outsider, a seventeen-year-old uncomfortable in his own skin who is forced to endure a family camping holiday in the South of France. Heatwave is a short novel that follows 17 year old Leo as he wanders the holiday park he is staying at her comes across a boy he has become acquaintances with strangling himself with ropes.Heatwave is a short book and the writing is easily to access so you can read this in just one sitting on a quiet evening or a lazy Sunday afternoon.

I could almost feel the intense heat, and thus I could empathize with the protagonist's apathy caused by the heat. But while reading I got a bit restless, from the moment Leo saw Oscar I wanted to know what happened and why.I might have missed something, probably did, but nothing I read subsequently convinced me that he would take that path. The young author of this first novel keeps all promises, with writing of a rare precision, mature and carnal. Léonard soffre il caldo in modo particolare, gli sviluppa un torpore che gli impedisce di ragionare con lucidità. The final Friday of his holiday, Leonard, who by now is worn out by the sheer cheerfulness of the camp site, opts for an early night and stays in bed instead of attending another party.

Uncomfortable in his own skin and struggling to find his footing in the world, Leonard is clearly a fish out of water in a holiday resort where social constructs are enforced with partying, drinking and organised activities.It focuses on characters making strange and momentous decisions that the reader would normally have no hope of understanding or empathising with. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.