Gerard Gavarry

This French novel is set in a contemporary Parisian suburb, which is populated by troubled and unemployed immigrant youths. The protagonist, Ti-Jus, is one of these youths, an aggressive and sexually magnetic young man, whose mother works at a nearby supermarket. His mother, who also works as a seamstress at home, asks him to deliver a dress to the manager of the supermarket she works at. Ti-Jus and a friend go to the manager's apartment, and while she is trying on the dress, he enters her bedroom, then rapes and kills her. The two young men then casually leave the apartment; end of story.

The same story is told in three different modes, each about 50 pages in length. IMO, the author was more concerned with stylistic technique than he was with telling the story of troubled immigrant youth in France, which was what I was hoping to read about. I quit the novel after 75 pages out of sheer boredom.… (meer)