Éric Richer

Rust

La rouille

August 23, 2018
Novel
384 pages
140 × 185 mm
21 €
9782377560141
978-2-3775-6014-1
Éric Richer, Rust
Éric Richer, Rust

Noi lives in an automobile scrap yard with a cowardly father and a tyrannical grandfather. The plot takes place in an undefined country governed by ancestral and violent customs. To escape this world of men that frightens him—alone, an uncle looks after him with affection and courage—the kid gets high on trichlo, rides a quad, seeks love and hallucinates a shark. However, he can not escape the Kännöst, an initiatory hunting rite which eventually leads all the characters to disaster.

A story about the refusal to become a man. The tale of a desperate resistance to the injustices imposed by society and an attempt to escape a destiny shaped by others.

Between David Vann’s Sukkawan Island and The Summer of Carrion by Simon Johannin, Rust traps the reader and does not let go. Rust is the gangrene which takes over the body and soul of everyone, gnawing at every hope of salvation and rendering it impossible.

The author

Éric Richer was born in Avignon in 1971. He grew up with 7 dogs, read a lot, studied cinema, film and projection then left for Japan. There, he made a documentary, came back and returned to the darkness of projection booths. Rust is his first novel. After having passed his childhood in Roquemore, near Avignon, he worked in the Le Méjean cinema, Arles, and then in Paris. Later, he settled in Clermont-l’Herault where he takes care of the cinema Alain Resnay.

Strong points

A very visual post-apocalyptic universe like Mad Max with its car races and violent virility.

A great psychological tension that reminds of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s films, particularly The Banishment.

Luminous counterpoints such as the complicity between Noi and his uncle and the love that the young boy has for Mute, a mute young woman.

August 23, 2018
Novel
384 pages
140 × 185 mm
21 €
9782377560141
978-2-3775-6014-1