Astragal
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
As alive as a Godard movie, this lost classic of ’60s French literature is back
As if the reader were riding shotgun, this intensely vivid novel captures a life on the lam. “L’astragale” is the French word for the ankle bone Albertine Sarrazin’s heroine Anne breaks as she leaps from her jail cell to freedom. As she drags herself down the road, away from the prison walls, she is rescued by Julien, himself a small-time criminal, who keeps her hidden. They fall in love. Fear of capture, memories of her prison cell, claustrophobia in her hideaways: every detail is fiercely felt.
Astragal burst onto the French literary scene in 1965; its fiery and vivacious style was entirely new, and Sarrazin became a celebrity overnight. But as fate would have it, Sarrazin herself kept running into trouble with the law, even as she became a star.
She died from a botched surgery at the height of her fame. Sarrazin’s life and work (her novels are semi-autobiographical) have been the subject of intense fascination in France; a new adaptation of Astragal is currently being filmed. Patti Smith, who brought Astragal to the attention of New Directions, contributes an enthusiastic introduction to one of her favorite writers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her 1965 semi-autobiographical debut composed while in prison for a botched hold-up, Sarrazin conjures Anne, a young French girl of the streets, helpless but full of lust and dreams. Patti Smith, in her introduction, calls this book the "bone that fused fact and fiction," and this piece of bone assumes center stage when Anne jumps from a prison wall and shatters her ankle: "I've flown away, my dears! I flew and soared...for one second, which was long and good, a century." Thus begins her flight from incarceration to immobility. She is rescued by Julien, an ex con who makes love to her and moves her from his Mother's home to a roadhouse and finally to Paris. The ankle does not heal, nor does Anne's need for Julien. Readers will relish Anne's lack of symmetry; her smoking, drinking, whoring, and thieving through the Parisian streets of the 1950's. She contemplates her failures with a cat-like need to pick herself up and pretend nothing hurts, while limping through her days looking over her shoulder in fear of being caught. This is the poetry of a beautiful, misplaced mind; echoing freedom, recklessness, and daring. Sarrazin blends the sadness and joy of youth, exuding vibrant passion.
