The Birthday Party

The Birthday Party is a strange and marvellous thing: a thriller in slow motion. The tension builds so patiently that you almost miss it, with the result that when shocking events occur its too late to turn away. This is a dark and discomfiting work of beauty and violence, made all the more disturbing by its idyllic setting. Jon McGregor, author of Lean Fall Stand This is a tension-ratcheting novel in which, over the space of a single day, the past breaks brutally into the present. There are shades of Joyce and Faulkner, but Mauvigniers writing is entirely his own: in lyrical, digressive, shapeshifting narrative, Mauvignier merges psychological depth and penetrating character study with the relentlessness of a cold-blooded thriller. A triumphant, genre-crossing book. Patrick McGuinness, author of Throw Me to the Wolves Mauvigniers ability to keep the shocks comingare among the qualities that make this riveting novel so nastily effective. Managing dynamic action as well as split-second psychological shiftsthe whole shebang culminates in an extravagantly choreographed set-piece blow-out of nigh-on unbearable jeopardythis macabre twist on the marriage-portrait novel ultimately invites prudence and humility on the thorny question of how much can we ever know about those closest to us. Anthony Cummings, Observer Daniel Levin Beckers translation renders Mauvigniers prose as fluid, often lovelyMauvigniers erudite thriller proves as interested in the grander deceptions of storyline as it is the ways we deceive ourselves. Jonathan McAloon, Financial Times The tension of the novel increases greatly but the style of the novel the attentive detailing of each characters attempt to comprehend these unfolding events remains steadfast, giving it the quality of a Michael Haneke film.... This astute thriller doesnt disappoint. Declan ODriscoll, The Irish Times The Birthday Party is characteristically stylish and intellectually ambitious, but it is also built around an immersive, suspenseful story: it is a thriller that experiments as much as it thrills. But this is also a remarkably open book, since it invites itself to be read in a number of waysDaniel Levin Beckers translation is excellent nimble and accurate throughout and does justice to Laurent Mauvigniers suggestive prose. Russel Williams, Times Literary Supplement [R]emarkable.... Readers whose tastes run to the pacey thrillers of James Patterson may find their patience frayed by the glacial progress of this quasi-Proustian noir. But if the beer god had meant everyone to drink Miller Light, he wouldnt have given the Belgian Trappists all those rich recipes. A compelling blend of mystery, horror, and suspense. Kirkus starred review One of Frances most talented writers. France Today It is truly a great book: enthralling, impressive and fascinating in its literary methods.... I was totally captivated by its sentences that build up pleasure, terror and anxiety, their long, slow rhythms that create its dynamic and tension just as much as the situation itself. Jean-Claude Raspiengeas, Le Masque et la Plume What matters, as always in Mauvigniers work, is giving a voice to the voiceless, the worthless, the unloved, the humiliated, even if this is done with unprecedented violence. For on this isolated farm where the drama is played out, the aggressors and the victims are more alike than we might think. All of them settle their scores with a destiny that has wronged them. Jrme Garcin, BibliObs [I]t is Mauvigniers writing, his undulating sentences, that makes this novel an exceptional work, and elevates this forgotten France to the rank of literary subject. Sylvie Tanette, Les Inrockuptibles Each of his books produce the same shock; the shock of the magnificence of his langua

Laurent Mauvignier was born in Tours in 1967. He gained a degree in Fine Art from the cole des Beaux-Arts in 1991, and published his first novel, Loin deux [Far from Them], in 1999. He has since written numerous novels, including In the Crowd (2006), The Wound (2009) and Continuer [Carrying On] (2018), all published by ditions de Minuit, and is the winner of eleven literary prizes, including the Prix Wepler and the Prix Amerigo-Vespucci. He is also a playwright and has written scripts for TV and film. The Birthday Party is his first book with Fitzcarraldo Editions.