Winner of the “Envoyé par La Poste” prize, Anatole Edouard Nicolo has written a modest and delicate first novel, inspired by his own life. “In the Shadow of Things” reveals the journey of two brothers, following the divorce of their parents. A luminous work of (re)construction, far from any miserabilism.
Anatole and his brother G. live a carefree childhood, in a house with a huge garden. But one day the parents divorce and insecurity sets in. The daily life of the two brothers is now divided between a social home and a luxury squat. Despite the difficulties and their differences, G. and Anatole will make a place for themselves in the world. For one it will be rap, for the other literature.
Candor of the gaze
Anatole, G. and their mother spent several years in the social home at 43 boulevard Gaston-Ramon, in Angers. If the building does not look like much and shames the narrator, he does, however, take a tender look at its inhabitants. The pot-bellied Monsieur Jacques spends his days watching television, drinking beers, while watching the street. Without forgetting the smiling Mounia who hides the marks of the past under her loose clothes.
I rather wanted to tell all the poetry of the unsaid, the postures, the looks, the things that we don’t necessarily say but which shout very loudly.
Wednesdays take place at the father’s house, in his “luxury squat” permeated by the smell of cigarettes. And when the electricity fails, the glow of the candles lends itself to incredible stories and antics. No misery or pity in the writing of Anatole Edouard Nicolo. The author likes to tell the beauty of little things, of not much.
Strong roots
A quick wedding at the town hall, plastic wedding rings taken from a packet of laundry detergent and a hitchhiking honeymoon to Le Mans, Anatole and G.’s parents have a very eccentric side. A daily routine and an overly conventional life put an end to their relationship and push them to take different paths.
If the readership has a partial vision of the mother, content to know that she is raising her two boys alone, while resuming psychology studies, the character of the father is more developed. An inveterate smoker with the look of a tramp, wearer of flip-flops in all weathers and keen on freedom, he does not hesitate to defend his son when he has to be held accountable following acts of vandalism.
Anatole and G.’s parents may be separated, but they agree on the fact that their sons must be fully involved in what they are passionate about. Behind the bohemian side, the roots are solid.
Time to take off
As in real life, “In the Shadow of Things” is punctuated by pivotal moments. Parental divorce, arrival at the social home and above all departure of the brother for Paris. Suffocating in his middle-sized town, G. left his family at the age of fourteen. Dreaming of breaking into the world of rap, he achieved it after doing several odd jobs in parallel.
I was a shadow. And I cursed her. I wanted the sun to hit me in the face, to illuminate my ordinary life with all its rays.
Dreamer and introvert, Anatole grew up in the shadow of his big brother. Football was his first escape before turning to literature. His journey will still be strewn with a few pitfalls before he realizes his dream of publishing a first novel.
In the first pages of “In the Shadow of Things”, Anatole Edouard Nicolo gives this preamble: “A true story with lies”, it is therefore up to you, readers, to disentangle the false from the true.
Sarah Clément/ld
Anatole Edouard Nicolo, “In the shadow of things”, Calmann-Lévy, August 2024.
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