Translated by Lia Hills
Set in the Blue Mountains and in Sydney, Tom is Dead is a suspense novel about grief. The narrator’s son has been dead for ten years; he was four and a half. For the first time since that day, she spends a few minutes without thinking of him. To stop herself from forgetting, she tries to write Tom’s story, the story of his death.She writes about the first hours, the first days, and then about the hours and the days before. She strives to describe it all as precisely as possible. It’s the details that will lead her and the reader to the truth.
‘Tom Is Dead is powerful; when one has finished reading it one feels it absolutely needed to exist.’
‘The internationally celebrated author who illuminates those parts of life other writers cannot or do not want to reach.’
‘There are very few writers who may have changed my perception of the world, but Darrieussecq is one of them.’