THE STRANGE POWER OF DISASTERS
A topical novel about the fertile social mutations triggered by a pandemic. How a highly lethal disease will allow a mother and a son to find their way back to each other...
by Hélène Le Bris
Description
France, summer 2029. A strange disease with an unspeakable name, called “Plague” for convenience, is sweeping the country. Deadly and highly contagious, it strikes in successive waves, upsetting the economy and social relations and overturning democracy. It eventually withdraws to Paris, placed under lockdown.
On either side of the medical barricade, a mother and her grown son witness contrasting events, she in her village, repopulated by townspeople spared from the virus, and he imprisoned in a devastated Paris. Their past opposes them, their present also keeps them apart: she struggles with paperwork in the filthy workshop next to her house, and he enjoys his job as a guide for the Louvre Museum. As the plague takes its toll, an unexpected reconciliation gradually takes place.
Their relationships with their loved ones also change. A couple of overworked caregivers, a distraught garage owner, and an emotional fortune teller experience with them the shock that the plague imposes on human relationships.
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Rights Information
ALL RIGHTS AVAILABLE except Chinese
Marketing Information
A virus that will shake up relationships and reshape
alliances.
- A novel about geographical and emotional “distances”:
between cities and the countryside, within families,
between friends...
- A unique concept where the pandemic itself is a
character, whose evolution, effects and logic aredepicted.
- A precise, accurate and well-crafted writing.
- Very nice and moving moments: the struggles of a
mother who loves her son but can’t show it to him; a childhood around a substitute mother; the reunion between mother and son during a virtual visit to a museum during the lockdown period; the tragic end.
Author Biography
Originally from Brittany, France, Hélène Le Bris settled
in Marseille after a long period spent in Paris. From one
shore to the other, this journey led her from her past
job in the building industry to writing novels.
Leor Literary Agency
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Eyrolles
- Publication Date May 2021
- Orginal LanguageFrench
- ISBN/Identifier 9782416000621
- Publication Country or regionFrance
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Original Language TitleL'étrange pouvoir des calamités
- Original Language AuthorsFrench
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