Nathan Hill, an American writer from Idaho, established himself on the international literary scene with his first novel, Ghosts of the Old Country (trans. Mathilde Bach), elected Foreign Revelation by the magazine Lire and winner of the Folio Télérama Booksellers Prize.
His new novel, Well-beingtakes place in the early 1990s in downtown Chicago. A man and woman, Elizabeth and Jack, spy on each other from their apartments across the street from each other, developing a romance before they even meet. Elizabeth, a cognitive psychology researcher from a line of wealthy crooks, and Jack, a dreamy photographer from a modest background in Kansas, begin a passionate relationship.
The story alternates between this budding love story, their marriage and the birth of their son Toby, and their lives twenty years later. At that time, the couple, gentrified, faced the wear and tear of everyday life, a difficult son and marital disenchantment. The purchase of an apartment in a rehabilitated building becomes the catalyst for their accumulated tensions. Will Elizabeth and Jack manage to overcome the erosion of their relationship?
« Around the couple formed by Elisabeth and Jack, Nathan Hill creates an impressive social and sentimental fresco, from the 1990s to the present day. Driven by narrative virtuosity, Well-Being focuses as much on the complexity of relationships between beings as on the metamorphoses of the city of Chicago and those of contemporary society. », declared the jury of the Grand Prize for American Literature.
It is made up of ten members including three journalists, Oriane Jeancourt Galignani (Transfuge), Philippe Chevilley (Les Échos) and Nicolas Carreau (Europe 1); four booksellers, Sylvie Loriquer (L’Attrape-Cœurs), Géraldine Mausservey (Librairie de Paris), Jean-Christophe Millois (École de la Librairie) and Pascal Thuot (Millepages); and three editors, Caroline Ast (Belfond), Francis Geffard (Albin Michel) and Juliette Ponce (Dalva).
Nathan Hill, who was in the last selection with Kaveh Akbar (Martyr !, translated by Stéphane Roques, Scribes-Gallimard), Richard Ford (Fool’s paradisetranslated by Josée Kamoun, L’Olivier) and Alice McDermott (Absolution, translated by Cécile Arnaud, La Table Ronde), succeeds Laird Hunt, Atticus Lish, Richard Russo, Richard Powers, Kevin Powers, Stephen Markley, Joyce Maynard, Anthony Doerr and Aleksandar Hemon, winner last year for A world of sky and earth (Calmann Levy).
Nathan Hill will receive his prize in Paris in the coming weeks (date to be confirmed).
Photo credits: Francesca Mantovani (Éditions Gallimard)
By Hocine Bouhadjera
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