Undercurrents »

A mesmerizing new tour de force from the internationally acclaimed author of Pig Tales—the writer The New Yorker hailed as France's "best young novelist." Ever since Pig Tales (described by Booklist as "Animal Farm meets The Metamorphosis") became an immediate bestseller in France and was optioned by the great filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, Marie Darrieussecq has been an international literary superstar. With her stunning follow-up novel, My Phantom Husband—an immediate #1 bestseller—Darrieussecq continued to earn critical acclaim. Undercurrents is her greatest triumph to date. A mother and daughter mysteriously disappear to a deserted seaside town in Spain, but the main character emerges as the sea itself, as Darrieussecq evokes the varied moods and rich palette of the ocean with poetic genius. From seemingly simple events, Darrieussecq deftly plunges the reader into a sensual, surrealistic literary experience grounded in—yet worlds away from—day-to-day reality. Called "truly inspired" by Elle and "gripping" by Le Monde, Undercurrents fulfills and exceeds our expectations of this talented young author.

Publishers Weekly

From the epigraph (taken from a Bj rk song) to the final pages, French sensation Marie Darrieussecq's (Pig Tales) Undercurrents (trans. by Linda Coverdale) is tinged with mystery and quiet menace. Without warning, a woman flees with her young daughter to a small, coastal resort town after emptying her and her husband's joint bank account. Someone is pursuing them but who? And why? Told from multiple, often indeterminate perspectives, this short novel though rich with detail does not give up its secrets easily, if at all. It will tantalize some readers but simply frustrate others. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.