It’s hard to believe that this is a first novel because this text is both mature and mastered. We follow the story of August, from the beginning of adolescence to the dawn of adulthood, from Michigan to Montana, from his father’s house to his mother’s. Before our eyes, over the days and experiences, we see a man being built: the divorce of his parents, the first sexual experiences, toxic masculinity and its terrible consequences, loneliness too…
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On the one hand, a silent father who would like his son to join him in running his small farm. On the other, an intellectual and politicized mother who encourages him to think for himself. At the heart of this broken family, a young man who evolves according to meetings and events, not quite an actor in his own life.
We dive here into the America of ordinary people, far, far away from the twinkling lights of Jay McInerney’s sophisticated New York or the dysfunctional family sagas of Jonathan Franzen. It’s the America of Jim Harrison with its high winds, its immense sky and its characters straight out of a Clint Eastwood film.
The attacks of September 11 resound like a distant echo, even if the tragedy will have very real repercussions in the entourage of the young August, who will be marked by the tragedy.
We are seduced by the breadth of this novel, the exoticism of the wide open spaces, the author’s tone, both soft and rough… Callan Wink’s first short story, published in the New Yorker, had been much noticed. With this novel, he already reaches the status of writers who count in the United States. A writer that we will follow with attention.
August
Callan Wink, translated from English by Michel Lederer
Albin Michael
380 pages
