Marie Darrieussecq: Il faut beaucoup aimer les hommes [You Should Love Men a Lot]

hommes

The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s Il faut beaucoup aimer les hommes [You Should Love Men a Lot]. This book has not yet been translated into English but almost certainly will be. It tells the story of Solange, whom we met in her previous book Clèves (All the Way). She is now an actress in Hollywood where she gets to play the French woman roles. While at a party at George’s (the Hollywood glitterati are called only by their first name but we guess most of them; George is undoubtedly George Clooney), she meets Kouhouesso, a black actor, a Canadian national but originally from Cameroon, who usually plays the token black roles, such as boxer or drug dealer. She falls madly in love with him – this will be one of the themes of the book as her love is not fully reciprocated – and they start an affair. Kouhouesso, however, wants to make an African film of Heart of Darkness and much of the novel is how he sets this up with the help of George and Oprah. Solange is keen to play the role of Marlow’s Intended and she does get the role though it does not work out as well as she hoped. As well as the relationship between Solange and Kouhouesso and the mild mockery of the Hollywood glitterati, the issue of racism is also key, as Kouhouesso struggles with his film. This is another superb novel from Darrieussecq, confirming her as one of the leading French writers of our day.

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