{"product_id":"the-safe-house-9780226849164","title":"The Safe House","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn Paris's exclusive Saint-Germain neighborhood is a mansion. In that mansion lives a family. Deep in that mansion. The Bolts are that family, and they have secrets. \u003ci\u003eThe Safe House\u003c\/i\u003e tells their story.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e When the Nazis came, Étienne Boltanski divorced his wife and walked out the front door, never to be seen again during the war. So far as the outside world knew, the Jewish doctor had fled. The truth was that he had sneaked back to hide in a secret crawl space at the heart of the house. There he lived for the duration of the war. With the Liberation, Étienne finally emerged, but he and his family were changed forever-anxious, reclusive, yet proudly eccentric. Their lives were spent, amid Bohemian disarray and lingering wartime fears, in the mansion's recesses or packed comically into the protective cocoon of a Fiat. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e That house (and its vehicular appendage) is at the heart of Christophe Boltanski's ingeniously structured, lightly fictionalized account of his grandparents and their extended family. The novel unfolds room by room-each chapter opening with a floorplan-introducing us to the characters who occupy each room, including the narrator's grandmother-a woman of \"savage appetites\"-and his uncle Christian, whose haunted artworks would one day make him famous. \"The house was a palace,\" Boltanski writes, \"and they lived like hobos.\" Rejecting convention as they'd rejected the outside world, the family never celebrated birthdays or even marked the passage of time, living instead in permanent stasis, ever more closely bonded to the house itself. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Safe House\u003c\/i\u003e was a literary sensation when published in France in 2015 and won the Prix de Prix, France's most prestigious book prize. A French-language film adaptation, \u003ci\u003eLa cache\u003c\/i\u003e, was released in 2025 from director Lionel Baier. With hints of Oulipian playfulness and an atmosphere of dark humor, \u003ci\u003eThe Safe House\u003c\/i\u003e is an unforgettable portrait of a self-imprisoned family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/05\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226849164\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.63lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.55d","brand":"Christophe Boltanski","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52604450603189,"sku":"9780226849164","price":13.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_f6eb3dd0-5f33-4531-baac-c1c11441e51d.jpg?v=1780454504","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-safe-house-9780226849164","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}