Joyce Carol Oates, Bernhard Schlink, Jerry Stahl… The selection of paperback books of the week

A story inspired by a news item, a political odyssey in post-war Germany, a gonzo report on Holocaust tourism, an Afro-futurist dystopia… Our suggestions for books to slip into your pockets this week .

“Babysitter”, de Joyce Carol Oates

“A novel is always a world in itself, whether it is the third or the twentieth,” declared Joyce Carol Oates at Telerama a few years ago, as if to put an end to the eternal questions about his phenomenal literary fertility and the ever-expanding contours of his extensive bibliography. Published in 2022 in the United States, the very dark Babysitter looks to the past to examine a place and a time: in the 1970s, the city of Detroit, Michigan, where Joyce Carol Oates has already set several of her opuses and which she readily presents as her “big subject”. The narrative of the book is based on a never-resolved news item: the kidnappings, kidnappings, rapes and murders of at least four children, in the mid-1970s, by an individual nicknamed “Babysitter”. by the press. — By.C.

Ed. Points, €11.40.

“La Petite-Fille”, by Bernhard Schlink

From thrillers to novels, Bernhard Schlink has never stopped exploring the history of Germany, his country. Especially after World War II. With rigor, a sense of modest and melancholic accuracy and justice. The Granddaughter bears witness to this, which arouses from page to page an emotion full of astonishment and compassion, tolerance and generosity. Coming home from his bookstore, Kaspar – a disguised self-portrait of Schlink, as is often the case? — discovers the corpse of Birgit, his beloved wife, in the bathtub of their apartment. Did she commit suicide? Journey to the heart of a little-known Germany, where sinister ghosts still reign in the shadow of defunct Marxist ideologies: The Granddaughter is a fascinating and disturbing political odyssey and above all a dazzling story of love, reparation, and accomplished mourning. — F.P.

Ed. Folio, €9.90.

“No, no, no!”, de Jerry Stahl

Jerry Stahl is depressed. He is also subscribed to a Google “Holocaust” alert. It is by mixing the two that he will try to ward off his misfortune: discovering the existence of tourist circuits in the high places of Nazism, he embarks for two weeks on an improbable trip by coach. Himself a descendant of Lithuanian Jews, he wants “face the brutal proof of the existence of evil” to forget his distress (he has just ruined his third marriage) by going to the “Land of the Real Nazis”. Auschwitz, Munich, Birkenau, Nuremberg: the American writer will be carried with fifteen other travelers by a guide between Poland and Germany. With raw writing, full of raw humor and self-deprecation, he questions the springs of this « dark tourism » controversial, in a story halfway between gonzo reporting and confession. — Y.B.

Ed. Rivages Pockets, €9.80.

“Tropical Hurricanes”, by Leonardo Padura

Hypermnesic, pessimistic, sometimes nostalgic, always lucid, Mario Conde is doubtful about the improvements in living conditions in Havana. He has experienced too much grandiose economic planning, waited for too many possible political loosenings to be enthusiastic about the arrival of President Obama on the island, followed by a Rolling Stones concert – in fact, he prefers the Beatles . A former criminal investigation inspector, now a second-hand bookseller, he is approached by a former colleague for a thorny matter: a former boss of the regime, determined, when he was in office, to destroy artists supposedly deviant from the ideological line, was murdered. — G.H.

Ed. Points, €9.90.

“Old Tea”, by Michael Roch

Will it be said later that brown soil, by Michael Roch, will have marked the birth of a French-speaking Afro-futurism? In Lanvil, a city of the future (2070) which is built high up and encompasses the entire Caribbean arc, a very hierarchical class society confines the rich to the surface and the poor to the lower reaches. The city is immense, surrounded by concrete and maintained by artificial energies. Those who refuse this segregation seek the All-World, a legend that hides in its folds… This starting point comes from a rather classic dystopian universe, the novelty comes from elsewhere. From the framework, first: Lanvil is a black city for which Europe and the United States are only secondary references, a welcoming land for migrants from all over the world, and this change of perspective, very decolonial, is exciting… — H.P.

Ed. The Pocket Book, €8.70.