Three By Echenoz

Three By Echenoz
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1620970023

A single volume that gathers together three of the most remarkable novels from Jean Echenoz, the “most distinctive French voice of his generation” (The Washington Post), Three by Echenoz demonstrates the award-winning author's extraordinary versatility and elegant yet playful style at its finest. “A parodic thriller sparkling with wit” (L'Humanité), Big Blondes probes our universal obsession with fame as a television documentary producer tries to track down a renowned singer who has mysteriously disappeared. A darkly comedic, noir-style tour de force, it finally answers the age-old question: do blondes have more fun? “Fluid, never forced...like a garment that fits beautifully even inside-out” (Elle), Piano brings Dante's Inferno to contemporary Paris, following Max Delmarc, a concert pianist suffering from paralyzing stage fright and alchoholism, as he meets his untimely death and descends through purgatory—part luxury hotel, part minimum-security prison—into a modern vision of hell. Running is “a small wonder of writing and humanity” (L'Express)—a portrait of the legendary Czech athlete Emil Zátopek, who became a national hero, winning three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics even as he was compelled to face the unyielding realities of life under an authoritarian regime.

Three By Echenoz

Three By Echenoz
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2014-06-03
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 159558983X

A single volume that gathers together three of the most remarkable novels from Jean Echenoz, the “most distinctive French voice of his generation” (The Washington Post), Three by Echenoz demonstrates the award-winning author’s extraordinary versatility and elegant yet playful style at its finest. “A parodic thriller sparkling with wit” (L’Humanité), Big Blondes probes our universal obsession with fame as a television documentary producer tries to track down a renowned singer who has mysteriously disappeared. A darkly comedic, noir-style tour de force, it finally answers the age-old question: do blondes have more fun? “Fluid, never forced…like a garment that fits beautifully even inside-out” (Elle), Piano brings Dante’s Inferno to contemporary Paris, following Max Delmarc, a concert pianist suffering from paralyzing stage fright and alchoholism, as he meets his untimely death and descends through purgatory—part luxury hotel, part minimum-security prison—into a modern vision of hell. Running is “a small wonder of writing and humanity” (L’Express)—a portrait of the legendary Czech athlete Emil Zátopek, who became a national hero, winning three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics even as he was compelled to face the unyielding realities of life under an authoritarian regime.

Lightning

Lightning
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2011-06-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1595587527

Drawn from the life of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors of his time, Lightning is a captivating tale of one man's curious fascination with the marvels of science. Hailed by the Washington Post as “the most distinctive voice of his generation,” Echenoz traces the notable career of Gregor, a precocious young engineer from Eastern Europe, who travels across the Atlantic at the age of twenty-eight to work alongside Thomas Edison, with whom he later holds a long-lasting rivalry. After his discovery of alternating current, Gregor quickly begins to astound the world with his other brilliant inventions, including everything from radio, radar, and wireless communication to cellular technology, remote control, and the electron microscope. Echenoz gradually reveals the eccentric inner world of a solitary man who holds a rare gift for imagining devices well before they come into existence. Gregor is a recluse—an odd and enigmatic intellect who avoids women and instead prefers spending hours a day courting pigeons in Central Park. Winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Echenoz once again demonstrates his astonishing abilities as a prose stylist as he vividly captures the life of an isolated genius. A beautifully crafted portrait of a man who prefers the company of lightning in the Colorado desert to that of other human beings, Lightning is a dazzling new work from one of the world's leading contemporary authors.

Ravel

Ravel
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2011-05-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1595586709

Ravel is a beguiling and original evocation of the last ten years in the life of the musical genius Ravel, written by novelist Jean Echenoz. The book opens in 1928 as Maurice Ravel—dandy, eccentric, curmudgeon—crosses the Atlantic abroad the luxury liner the SS France to begin his triumphant grand tour of the United States. A “master magician of the French novel” (The Washington Post), Echenoz captures the folly of the era as well as its genius, including Ravel’s personal life—sartorially and socially splendid—as well as his most successful compositions from 1927 to 1937. Illuminated by flashes of Echenoz’s characteristically sly humor, Ravel is a delightfully quirky portrait of a famous musician coping with the ups and downs of his illustrious career. It is also a beautifully written novel that’s a deeply touching farewell to a dignified and lonely man going reluctantly into the night.

I'm Gone

I'm Gone
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2014-05-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1620970015

Winner of France's prestigious Prix Goncourt and a runaway bestseller, Jean Echenoz's I'm Gone is the ideal introduction to the sly wit, unique voice, and colorful imagination of “the master magician of the contemporary French novel” (The Washington Post). Nothing less than a heist caper, an Arctic adventure story, a biting satire of the art world, and a meditation on love and lust and middle age all rolled into one fast-paced, unpredictable, and deliriously entertaining novel, I'm Gone tells the story of an urbane art and antiques dealer who abandons his wife and career to pursue a memorably pathetic international crime spree. “Crisp and erudite” (The Wall Street Journal), “seductive and delicately ironic” (The Economist), and with an unexpected sting in its tail, I'm Gone—translated by Mark Polizzotti—is a dazzling, postmodern subversion of narrative conventions and an amused look at the absurdities of modern life. With a wink and a nod and a keen eye for the droll detail, Echenoz invites the reader “to enjoy I'm Gone in the same devil-may-care spirit in which it is offered” (The Boston Sunday Globe).

We Three

We Three
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: French Literature
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781628971705

Louis Meyer is an overworked aerospace engineer looking forward to a week-long vacation on the Mediterranean. DeMilo is an astronaut and self-proclaimed ladies' man whose behavior borders on the obsessive and voyeuristic. When a series of coincidences and disasters--including a devastating earthquake in Marseilles--brings them together on a spacecraft with an aloof woman they are both strongly attracted to, the two men's flaws and shortcomings emerge as they engage in an underhanded competition to win her over. Brimming with Jean Echenoz's inimitable humor, We Three is both a satirical take on the adventure novel and subtle experiment with narrative point of view.

The Queen's Caprice

The Queen's Caprice
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 55
Release: 2010-08-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1620970724

Seven short stories by the Prix Goncourt winner—“the most distinctive voice of his generation . . . master magician of the contemporary French novel” (The Washington Post). France’s preeminent fiction writer, Jean Echenoz is celebrated for his ability to craft stories with such precision that readers are caught off guard by the intense emotion and imagination just beneath the placid surface of his writing. As Gary Indiana put it in his essay “Conjuror of St. Germain”, “Echenoz risks everything in his fiction, gambling on the prodigious blandishments of his voice to lure his readers into a maze of improbabilities and preposterous happenings.” The Queen’s Caprice—seven stories available in English for the first time—reveals Echenoz at the height of his talents, taking readers on a journey across radically different landscapes. The title story explores a tiny corner of the French countryside; “Nelson” offers a brilliant miniaturist portrait of the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar; “In Babylon” sketches the ancient city of Mesopotamia, based on trace descriptions from Herodotus; and other stories visit the forests of England, the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, Tampa Bay, and the interior of a submarine. Amid the thrill and allure of this voyage of words, “again and again we pause to savor the richness of Echenoz’s startling, crystalline observations” (Lydia Davis). “[A] terrific sense of humor tinged with existential mischief.” —L’Express

Fatale

Fatale
Author: Jean-Patrick Manchette
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2011-12-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1590175727

A New York Review Books Original Whether you call her a coldhearted grifter or the soul of modern capitalism, there’s no question that Aimée is a killer and a more than professional one. Now she’s set her eyes on a backwater burg—where, while posing as an innocent (albeit drop-dead gorgeous) newcomer to town, she means to sniff out old grudges and engineer new opportunities, deftly playing different people and different interests against each other the better, as always, to make a killing. But then something snaps: the master manipulator falls prey to a pure and wayward passion. Aimée has become the avenging angel of her own nihilism, exacting the destruction of a whole society of destroyers. An unholy original, Jean-Patrick Manchette transformed the modern detective novel into a weapon of gleeful satire and anarchic fun. In Fatale he mixes equal measures of farce, mayhem, and madness to prepare a rare literary cocktail that packs a devastating punch.

Running

Running
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2009-12-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1595586679

Following his brilliant portrait of Maurice Ravel, Jean Echenoz turns to the life of one of the greatest runners of the twentieth century, and once again demonstrates his astonishing abilities as a prose stylist. Set against the backdrop of the Soviet liberation and post–;World War II communist rule of Czechoslovakia, Running— a bestseller in France—follows the famed career of Czech runner Emil Zátopek: a factory worker who, despite an initial contempt for athletics as a young man, is forced to participate in a footrace and soon develops a curious passion for the physical limits he discovers as a long-distance runner. Zátopek, who tenaciously invents his own brutal training regimen, goes on to become a national hero, winning an unparalleled three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and breaking countless world records along the way. But just as his fame brings him upon the world stage, he must face the realities of an increasingly controlling regime. Written in Echenoz's signature style—elegant yet playful—Running is both a beautifully imagined and executed portrait of a man and his art, and a powerful depiction of a country's propagandizing grasp on his fate.

Special Envoy

Special Envoy
Author: Jean Echenoz
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1620973138

Longlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award “Special Envoy is an exceedingly French spy thriller.” —New York Times Book Review A dazzling satirical spy novel, part La Femme Nikita, part Pink Panther and part Le Carré—from one of the world’s preeminent authors Jean Echenoz's sly and playful novels have won critical and popular acclaim in France, where he has won the Prix Goncourt, as well as in the United States, where he has been profiled by the New Yorker and called the"most distinctive voice of his generation" by the Washington Post. With his wonderfully droll and intriguing new work, Special Envoy, Echenoz turns his hand to the espionage novel. When published in France, it stormed the bestseller lists. Special Envoy begins with an old general in France's intelligence agency asking his trusted lieutenant Paul Objat for ideas about a person he wants for a particular job: someone to aid the destabilization of Kim Jong-un's regime in North Korea. Objat has someone in mind: Constance, an attractive, restless, bored woman in a failing marriage to a washed-up pop musician. Soon after, she is abducted by Objat's cronies and spirited away into the lower depths of France's intelligence bureaucracy where she is trained for her mission. What follows is a bizarre tale of kidnappings, murders and mutilations, bad pop songs and great sex, populated by a cast of oddballs and losers. Set in Paris, rural central France, and Pyongyang, Special Envoy is joyously strange and unpredictable, full of twists and ironic digressions—and, in the words of L'Express, "a pure gem, a delight."