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After the Circus
Cover of After the Circus
After the Circus
A Novel
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A classic novel from recent Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano, now available to English-language readers in a superb new translation
One of the hallmarks of French author Patrick Modiano's writing is a singular ability to revisit particular motifs and episodes, infusing each telling with new detail and emotional nuance. In this evocative novel the internationally acclaimed author takes up one of his most compelling themes: a love affair with a woman who disappears, and a narrator grappling with the mystery of a relationship stopped short.

Set in mid-sixties Paris, After the Circus traces the relationship between the narrator, a young man not quite of legal age, and the slightly older, enigmatic woman he first glimpses at a police interrogation. The two lovers make their uncertain way into each other's hearts, but the narrator soon finds himself in the unsettling, ominous presence of others. Who are these people? Are they real, or simply evoked? Part romance, part detective story, this mesmerizing book fully demonstrates Modiano's signature use of atmosphere and suggestion as he investigates the perils and the exhilaration of young love.

A classic novel from recent Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano, now available to English-language readers in a superb new translation
One of the hallmarks of French author Patrick Modiano's writing is a singular ability to revisit particular motifs and episodes, infusing each telling with new detail and emotional nuance. In this evocative novel the internationally acclaimed author takes up one of his most compelling themes: a love affair with a woman who disappears, and a narrator grappling with the mystery of a relationship stopped short.

Set in mid-sixties Paris, After the Circus traces the relationship between the narrator, a young man not quite of legal age, and the slightly older, enigmatic woman he first glimpses at a police interrogation. The two lovers make their uncertain way into each other's hearts, but the narrator soon finds himself in the unsettling, ominous presence of others. Who are these people? Are they real, or simply evoked? Part romance, part detective story, this mesmerizing book fully demonstrates Modiano's signature use of atmosphere and suggestion as he investigates the perils and the exhilaration of young love.

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About the Author-
  • Patrick Modiano, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for literature and an internationally beloved novelist, has been honored with an array of prizes, including the 2010 Prix mondial Cino Del Duca by the Institut de France for lifetime achievement and the 2012 Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He lives in Paris. Mark Polizzotti has translated more than forty books from the French and is director of the publications program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Reviews-
  • Library Journal

    Starred review from September 1, 2015

    Published in 1992, this brief, polished, ultimately poignant story is classic Modiano: the superbly lean, undemonstrative style withholds as much as it tells; the characters leave much unsaid; the atmosphere is moody, even noir; a troubling ambiguity leads to creeping unease; and the present and past are enfolded sentence by sentence, just as the past is never really shaken out of our lives, even if it sometimes gets submerged. Just 18, rooming with the lascivious friend of his absent father, and preparing to go to Rome for work, the callow protagonist meets the somewhat older Gisele when they are both interrogated by the police for unclear reasons. He ends up bringing Gisele to his apartment, where she stashes a suitcase, then meets some shady friends of hers, one of whom agrees to lend them his car if they do him a small favor. The favor starts looking questionable, and as Gisele's possibly unsavory past starts unwinding (we can't be sure the details are true), our hero wonders what he's gotten himself into--yet commits to Gisele wholeheartedly, ever worried that she will vanish. VERDICT Not for readers who like answers but smart and strangely moving and an excellent representation of Modiano at his best.--BH

    Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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    Yale University Press
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A Novel
Patrick Modiano
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