Originally published in French. 

The unreasonableness of existence is hard to fathom sometimes. Some people are lucky. They are born happy and healthy. Into loving families. Then there are others. Children born into chaos. Cast into frightening and abusive scenarios. 

This is a story about the latter. 

Adeline Dieudonné’s fierce debut novel, La Vraie Vie, tells the tale of the horror of living with a toxic and violent father. 

The book starts slowly. We meet a family living in Brussels: the book’s narrator (simply referred to as the narrator), her younger brother, her mother and her father. The father is a big game hunter and has a room full of animal carcasses. The property is a refuge for derelict cars. 

When she is ten, the narrator witnesses a brutal accident. She is convinced it is her fault and strives to build a time machine to reverse her new reality. 

The father is a monster. He beats his wife in front of the children. He constantly intimidates them and enforces cruel routines. The mother, terrorised and traumatised by her violent husband, has become submissive to his demands. 

There is no one to protect the children, so the narrator must do so herself. When she sees her younger brother displaying traits of her father, her unbending love for him, who she cherishes more than anything else in her universe, will cause her to dig deep inside herself to save him. 

La Vraie Vie could be described as a coming of age story. Coming of age in the most horrific of ways. 

This is a book full of contrasts. It has soft sides and sharp edges. There are flashes of fantasy, moments of humour that provide a passing break from the storm. And though it gets bleak and frightening at times, it is gripping throughout and follows a redemptive arc. 

This is a writer on terrific form. 

Adeline Dieudonné (1982) lives in Brussels. Her short story, Amarula, won the Grand Prize in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation short story competition in 2017. In 2018, she published her first novel, La Vraie Vie, which was awarded numerous awards including the Fnac novel prize, the Renaudot prize for high school students, the Victor Rossel prize.