Of Fangs and Talons
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Nicolas Mathieu’s gripping first novel is the story of a world that has come to an end. With a girl, a gun and acres of snow. When a factory that employs most of a small town is scheduled to close – to the despair of the workers and disdain of the overlords – things start to fall apart. The disenfranchised factory workers have nothing left to lose. Martel, the trade union rep with innumerable tattoos and Bruce, the body-builder addicted to steroids, resort to desperate measures. A bungled kidnapping on the streets of Strasbourg goes horribly wrong and they find themselves falling prey to the machinations of the criminal underworld.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Sam
Taylor
Sam Taylor is an award-winning literary translator and novelist. His four novels have been published in ten languages, and he has translated more than sixty books from the French, including Laurent Binet’s HHhH, Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny, and Marcel Proust’s The Seventy-Five Folios. He grew up in England, spent a decade in France, and now lives in the United States.
Sam Taylor is an award-winning literary translator and novelist. His four novels have been published in ten languages, and he has translated more than sixty books from the French, including Laurent Binet’s HHhH, Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny, and Marcel Proust’s The Seventy-Five Folios. He grew up in England, spent a decade in France, and now lives in the United States.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
A bleak tale of the disenfranchised, in this case the factory workers and others living in a small town in the Vosges region of France. Things start to go downhill when the factory is set to close, then it gets worse. Compelling enough to want to read all in one sitting. Very excellent.
– The State Library of South Australia