From Library Journal

Exponent of the Nouveau Roman, French author, playwright, and filmmaker Duras is best known in the United States for the script of Hiroshima Mon Amour and the semiautobiographical novel The Lover ( LJ 6/1/85). Although it lacks the exotic love interest of these two works, this novel--which typifies Duras's spare style and rejection of classical literary principles--does contain a love story. The story concerns an immigrant family living on the edge of civilized society in Vitry, a suburb of Paris. The parents are uneducated and the seven children do not attend school. Family members exert strong underlying bonds upon one another, which are finally broken when the eldest, Ernesto, connects with the world beyond. As in the film she based on this story, Duras now succeeds in making a dreary, hopeless suburb, that least literary of places, an exploration of the most basic concerns of humanity. Academic libraries will want this for literature collections, and public libraries that collect Duras's works will also be interested.

-Mary Ellen Beck, Troy P.L., N.Y.

Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.