Un conte parisien violent (A Brutal Parisian Tale)

“It's not going to end well, that's for sure, I don't see how it could end any other way. Not only for you, but especially for you. I'd like to tell you the opposite, that you'll be able to keep on messing around, that nothing serious will ever happen to you. But that's not true. It won't be alright.”

Salomé (also known as “Salamander”, “Chewing Gum”, “Sally”), 14, lives in Paris, in the Stalingrad district. Her mother has vanished to New York, where a serial killer preying on women is on the loose; her father, a cop, no longer sets foot in the house except to drop off cash for groceries; her older sister, Rose, prefers the company of her punk boyfriend.

Salomé, left to her own devices, takes refuge among the homeless and drug dealers. Especially Mamadou, the old man everyone believes to be crazy, but whom she considers her only friend.

Danger lurks. Monsters with rotten mouths, violence of all kinds, and failing parents... The tension steadily builds up as Salomé’s initiatory journey unfolds: can her story in Stalingrad have a happy ending?

Press

“Un conte parisien violent works like a fable. An initiatory trip for Salomé, an Alice in Wonderland with punks and hobos. A novel about dropouts, from rebels who want to change the world - yet claim there is no possible future - to those who, trapped in the street, risk at any moment to step past a point of no return.”

Benjamin Fogel