Tom Is Dead

translated from the French 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.

Praise for Tom Is Dead:

‘I love the way Marie Darrieussecq writes about the world, as if it were an extension of herself and her feelings.’

J.M.G. Le Clézio (Nobel Laureate for Literature 2008)

‘This savvy young writer plays her cards beautifully.’

New York Times

‘A thousand times more inventive than any British writer of her generation.’

Irish Times

‘[An] incisive, lyrical and sympathetic translation of a novel with such a European sensibility, such intensity and such a distinctive style and tone…Tom is Dead is mesmerising and deeply rewarding…absorbing and unusual.’

Australian Literary Review