Overview

The Book Toute la France is Talking About, Now Available in English ""Literature doesn't stop bullets. On the other hand, it can stop a finger from ending up on a trigger. Perhaps. It's a bet worth making."" Erwan Larher was enjoying a rock concert in Paris' Bataclan Theater on November 13, 2015, when the firing started. In this genre-bending, deeply moving and unexpected memoir, Larher reflects on what the gruesome terror attack meant to him and to others. The Book I Didn't Want to Write transcends bearing witness. Larher's voice is intertwined with others--his partner, his father, the two friends who were going to come but didn't--to create a deeply moving collective chronicle of the most violent night in French history since World War II. He recounts not only how such an act affected him and his loved ones, but the thousands who lived through that night, the millions who followed the event through media, and even the attackers themselves. 'You were in the wrong place at the wrong time; you're a miracle, not a victim, ' he writes. Larher is anything but self-pitying. The book is all the more remarkable in its stoic, bold approach: perhaps to be expected from one of France's most beloved rock-n-roll novelist with a suitably gritty look at the world and at words. There is no tearful history, unhealthy voyeurism or grudge-settling. Instead, Larher explains how he must, 'write around because you are a novelist and not a chronicler, because you can only shape a text by appeasing literature.' The Book I Didn't Want to Write is remarkable in both its construction and content. It achieves what few titles can--and exactly what Larher set out to do--to remind us of life's emotional and artistic depths despite tragedy. It is a masterful slap in the face and a hymn to life.

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9781988996004

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Reviews

The Book I Didn't Want to Write brings grace into life. Philippe Jaenada - Le Monde des livres A perilous exercise that Erwan Larter pulls off brilliantly, dignified in his suffering, going beyond mere testimony to deliver a metaphysical reflection on death coupled with a lesson in writing. Amandine Schmitt - Bibliobs Love, that weapon against terror Thierry Guichard - Le Matricule des anges The book everyone is talking about Fran�ois Alquier - Les chroniques de Mandor The form echoes the substance: the collective transcends the individual. And makes this book I did not want to write the book we all must read. Julie Malaure - Le Point A beautiful, important, unique book. H�lo�se - Un dernier livre avant la fin du monde It is a book of flesh, of blood, of bone. And what emerges from all this blood, flesh, and bone is in the end a beautiful and great desire to live, without even the pretension of claiming to understand death. There is no hint of morality, just love. St�phanie Joly - Paris-ci la Culture A great book far from the basic testimonies and usual clich�s that always accompany the stories of these tragedies. Librairie Vaux-Livres An intense, generous text, original in its construction and its language, and filled with a love that saves everything. Camille Brachet - Vaporiser une mouche A generous and powerful book .... in which everyone can meet, a book in which the collective dimension overshadows the individual drama. La biblioth�que de Delphine Olympe Without pathos, without heaviness, just words served by very beautiful writing [...] Thank you for this book, which we will hasten to discover when it will be in bookstores at the end of the summer, and so to hell with the SCREAMS that I'm not close to forgetting even if that evening I was quietly bundled up at home.... Yann Leray Alpha Bureau, Monistrol-sur-Loire Delicate, funny, sensitive, rocking ... It's both a romantic immersion and a true, well-documented testimony. I can't believe how much I liked it, given the subject. Benjamin Cornet Les Mots et les Choses, Boulogne-Billancourt This is a book we must read just to remember ... It is a very beautiful book that grabs you by the guts, puts a lump in your throat and makes you want to weep and shush your loved ones--and then tell them that you love them ... Sandrine Dantard Fnac Grenoble

The Book I Didn't Want to Write brings grace into life. Philippe Jaenada - Le Monde des livres A perilous exercise that Erwan Larter pulls off brilliantly, dignified in his suffering, going beyond mere testimony to deliver a metaphysical reflection on death coupled with a lesson in writing. Amandine Schmitt - Bibliobs Love, that weapon against terror Thierry Guichard - Le Matricule des anges The book everyone is talking about Fran ois Alquier - Les chroniques de Mandor The form echoes the substance: the collective transcends the individual. And makes this book I did not want to write the book we all must read. Julie Malaure - Le Point A beautiful, important, unique book. H lo se - Un dernier livre avant la fin du monde It is a book of flesh, of blood, of bone. And what emerges from all this blood, flesh, and bone is in the end a beautiful and great desire to live, without even the pretension of claiming to understand death. There is no hint of morality, just love. St phanie Joly - Paris-ci la Culture A great book far from the basic testimonies and usual clich s that always accompany the stories of these tragedies. Librairie Vaux-Livres An intense, generous text, original in its construction and its language, and filled with a love that saves everything. Camille Brachet - Vaporiser une mouche A generous and powerful book .... in which everyone can meet, a book in which the collective dimension overshadows the individual drama. La biblioth que de Delphine Olympe Without pathos, without heaviness, just words served by very beautiful writing [...] Thank you for this book, which we will hasten to discover when it will be in bookstores at the end of the summer, and so to hell with the SCREAMS that I'm not close to forgetting even if that evening I was quietly bundled up at home.... Yann Leray Alpha Bureau, Monistrol-sur-Loire Delicate, funny, sensitive, rocking ... It's both a romantic immersion and a true, well-documented testimony. I can't believe how much I liked it, given the subject. Benjamin Cornet Les Mots et les Choses, Boulogne-Billancourt This is a book we must read just to remember ... It is a very beautiful book that grabs you by the guts, puts a lump in your throat and makes you want to weep and shush your loved ones--and then tell them that you love them ... Sandrine Dantard Fnac Grenoble

Author Information

Erwan Larher was born in central France and attended the prestigious Sciences Po university. He left the music business after 15 years to write full-time; his first novel was published in 2010, and his third, The Male Abandoned in a Hostile Environment (2013), won the Claude-Chabrol and the Louis-Barthou literary awards. Larher was shot in the November 2015 attack on the Bataclan Theater, and was lucky to escape with his life; he finished his fourth novel, Margaret Doesn't Like Her Bum, while recovering in hospital. His deeply moving account of this event, The Book I Didn't Want to Write, appeared in France in August 2017 and was an immediate critical and popular hit; it has since sold tens of thousands of copies.

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