No Telling

Description:
Set in 1968 in the Parisian suburbs, 'No Telling' is narrated by twelve-year-old Gilles as he approaches his Solemn Communion, puberty, and some sense of the chaos around him. His home is deeply dysfunctional: a dithering mother, a hard-drinking, womanising uncle who becomes his stepfather, and an older sister, Carole - an unbalanced revolutionary who hasn't danced her ballet steps since the death of their real father. Gilles is blithely unaware that any of this is out of the ordinary, as he and his friend Christophe try and piece together a world from fragments of rumour and hushed adult conversation. There is a deeper trauma here, however, far more shocking that Gilles could have dreamt of - a mystery it will take the events of this novel and eight years to resolve...

Author Biography:
Adam Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956. His first novel, Ulverton, was published in 1992, and he has written three other novels - most recently Nineteen Twenty-One - a collection of stories and three books of poetry. He lives in France with his wife and three children.