What You Need from the Night

Petitmangin debuts with an intense portrait of a family torn apart by radical political violence in post-industrial France. The unnamed narrator, a railway engineer and socialist, has raised two sons after the death of their mother from cancer. Golden boy Gillou, the younger son, heads off to university in Paris, leaving behind the narrator and Fus, his oldest, who breaks the narrator’s heart by taking up with the right-wing National Front party. Their declining village in eastern France is crafted as a bleak landscape devoid of hope, where football and alcohol provide meager comfort. The story of grief and disillusion ramps up after Fus is severely beaten by a members of a leftist group, setting him on a course of vengeance that culminates in tragedy. Rather than slipping into melodrama, Petitmangin pulls off a luminous yet somber exploration of familial disintegration, probing the depths of a father’s unwavering love and the agony of confronting irreparable division. It’s an impressive testament to the power of tenderness in the face of despair. (Oct.)