Staff Pick
Angot's Incest is one of the strangest and most disturbing books that I've read, and also one of the most effective. It confronts the long-lasting emotional impacts of sexual abuse, and it is not for the faint of heart — the narrator's descent into a devastating trauma loop is difficult to witness. A reminder that the most destructive people are often the most destroyed, this book was a crash-course in empathy — I didn't know if I could finish it, but I'm so glad I persevered: I walked away with a profound sense of gratitude for its courage. Recommended By Darla M., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A daring novel that made Christine Angot one of the most controversial figures in contemporary France recounts the narrator's incestuous relationship with her father. Tess Lewis's forceful translation brings into English this audacious novel of taboo.
The narrator is falling out from a torrential relationship with another woman. Delirious with love and yearning, her thoughts grow increasingly cyclical and wild, until exposing the trauma lying behind her pain. With the intimacy offered by a confession, the narrator embarks on a psychoanalysis of herself, giving the reader entry into her tangled experiences with homosexuality, paranoia, and, at the core of it all, incest. In a masterful translation from the French by Tess Lewis, Christine Angot's Incest audaciously confronts its readers with one of our greatest taboos.