Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas

"Elegant. Unpretentious. Approachable. . . . He is, all in all, quite an endearing Nobelist."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post

"Modiano is a pure original."--Adam Thirlwell, The Guardian

"A fine introduction to Modiano's later work."--The Economist

"These novellas have a mood. They cast a spell."--Dwight Garner, New York Times

In this essential trilogy of novellas by the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, French author Patrick Modiano reaches back in time, opening the corridors of memory and exploring the mysteries to be encountered there. Each novella in the volume--Afterimage, Suspended Sentences, and Flowers of Ruin--represents a sterling example of the author's originality and appeal, while Mark Polizzotti's superb English-language translations capture not only Modiano's distinctive narrative voice but also the matchless grace and spare beauty of his prose.

Although originally published separately, Modiano's three novellas form a single, compelling whole, haunted by the same gauzy sense of place and characters. Modiano draws on his own experiences, blended with the real or invented stories of others, to present a dreamlike autobiography that is also the biography of a place. Orphaned children, mysterious parents, forgotten friends, enigmatic strangers--each appears in this three-part love song to a Paris that no longer exists.

Shadowed by the dark period of the Nazi Occupation, these novellas reveal Modiano's fascination with the lost, obscure, or mysterious: a young person's confusion over adult behavior; the repercussions of a chance encounter; the search for a missing father; the aftershock of a fatal affair. To read Modiano's trilogy is to enter his world of uncertainties and the almost accidental way in which people find their fates.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 11/11/2014
ISBN: 9780300198058
Pages: 232
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 7.80h x 5.00w x 0.70d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 10/20/2014
Kirkus Reviews 12/01/2014
Library Journal 12/01/2014 pg. 99
Booklist 12/15/2014 pg. 27
New York Times Book Review 12/28/2014 pg. 16
New York Times Book Review 01/04/2015 pg. 22