Synopses & Reviews
Alone with their bullying father on a vast estate, a sister and brother speak a language and inhabit a universe of their own making. When the old man commits suicide, they are forced into contact with the villagers and their cloak of romance and superstition quickly falls away to reveal shocking truths. Balancing naiveté with carnality, Soucy employs his signature playfulness, plot twists, and fascination with guilt, cruelty, and violence in a narrative tour de force where nothing is quite what it seems.
Synopsis
Alone with their authoritarian father on a vast estate where time has stopped, two siblings speak a language and inhabit a surreal universe of their own making, shaped by their reading of philosophy and tales of chivalry. When their father dies and the children set out to bury him, they encounter the inhabitants of the neighboring village, and the pair's cloak of romance and superstition falls away to reveal the appalling truth of their existence. A brilliant, masterful story in which nothing is as it first seems, The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is a triumph of suspense, linguistic invention, and playfulness that peers into the heart of guilt, cruelty, and violence.