This crazy novel with an abracadabrantesque plot won the Prix du Flore, awarded at the brewery of the same name. A prestigious award for its author, Benjamin Stock, who is writing his first book. His hero, David, is a thirty-something Parisian, founder of the “Share Factory”, a start-up with the vague aims of inclusivity and digital transition. Shaken by an encounter with a young Dostoyevskian waiter who questions the meaning of life, he begins to experience an existential crisis. Then one of his employees introduces him to an underground community of Marc Lévy readers. Its followers meet in secret to read between the lines of the messages that the popular novelist purposely sows in his work. The author of And if it were true would he be a dissident calling for the underground fomenting of a worldwide communist revolution against the “system”? Benjamin Stock, 35, says he was inspired by Quanon’s American conspiracy scenario…