There’s something a little miraculous about this novel, which gives a voice to a character who doesn’t speak, 17-year-old Jérémy, severely autistic and mentally handicapped. Laurent SeyerLaurent Seyer, a financier turned writer, portrays the daily life and tragic condition of his character-narrator with an accuracy and freedom of tone, a tenderness and a sense of comedy that are irresistible.

It’s so fine that you can’t help but think that the author didn’t completely invent this story or his hero. Let’s quote him to get the measure of Jeremy’s situation: “I don’t talk. I’ve never spoken. I’m unable to communicate. To express what I feel and what I think. Yet I feel and I think. But nobody knows. It’s lonely.”

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