Recommended book "11:12 p.m. - People in one night" by Adeline Dieudonné
Created: 08/10/2022 10:37 am
By: Sven Trautwein
The cover of Adenile Dieudonné's new book "11:12 PM" comes across as harmless.
But that has it sly between the book covers.
My book tip.
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Looking at the cover made me think of a collection of stories about the sea.
Finally, a dolphin is depicted.
And when I first discovered it in a bookstore, it was between light summer reading.
Can you do.
However, “11:12 p.m. – People in One Night” is no easy task. They are short stories that get under your skin.
Delicate readers who dream of waves and sea are in the wrong place.
Everyone else should definitely access it.
Adeline Dieudonné "11:12 p.m. - People in one night": About the book
Adeline Dieudonné "11:12 p.m. - People in one night" © dtv
A summer night at a motorway rest stop in the Ardennes.
At 11:12 p.m., under bright neon lights, a dozen people witnessed an old woman climb over the roadway's guardrail.
The gas station cashier;
Chelly, the pole dance teacher;
Alika, the Filipino nanny;
Victoire, 25-year-old supermodel;
Loïc, car mechanic and pick-up artist;
Joseph, salesman for mites...: Every one of them is an outsider and has a gossip.
A unique panopticon of human peculiarities in Dieudonné's incomparable sound: tough, drastic, wild, taboo-free, surreal, raven-black and full of exuberant imagination.
dtv
A gas station, at night, just after 11 p.m.
Diedonné composes a kaleidoscope of characters who all meet there without knowing each other.
Their own stories are told, from time to time you catch a glimpse of others who are there too.
I encounter this as a reader in the further course of the book.
And with every short story I move towards the big picture.
Bit by bit.
Inevitable.
Direct.
Hard on the pain threshold.
Adeline Dieudonné: Descriptions almost to the point of pain
If we know a gas station in the countryside as a place of refuge where you can still get emergency chips, water or spirits at night because there are no Berliner Spätis there, then in Diedonné's "11:12 p.m." you experience a pool of curious characters.
We meet pig-stroking butchers who weekly invite friends over for dinner and kill an animal in front of them.
Or Chelly, who, as a pole dance trainer and influencer, dreams of jet set life with handsome men.
She is less fortunate with her partner at home.
When she realizes it, she grabs a knife and makes short work of it.
She comes to the gas station with her boyfriend's body in the car.
I caught my breath here.
What else can come?
The gas station as a place of refuge.
Stranded characters who haven't given up hope for a better life.
Looking for a ride, an exchange, some also looking for a quick hookup that has nothing to do with love and warmth.
As a reader, I look into the human abysses that are deviant, voyeuristic and bloody, as if I were in a thriller.
Adeline Dieudonné "11:12 p.m. - People in one night": My conclusion
Story by story it gets more aloof.
The character studies, even if they don't have much space in the stories, are haunting and enough for the inner head cinema.
The new book by Adeline Dieudonné is linguistically direct and clear, paired with black humor.
In short: great cinema.
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Adeline Dieudonné "11:12 p.m. - People in one night"
2022, dtv ISBN-13 978-3-423-29022-7
Price: hardcover €18, e-book €14.99, 176 pages (differs to the format) – order now (promotional link)
Adeline Dieudonne
Adeline Dieudonné was born in Brussels in 1982 and is an actress by profession.
After several award-winning short stories and a successful one-woman play, her debut novel The Real Life (promotional link) spent months on the French bestseller list, won 14 literary awards and was translated into 20 languages.
