Ladivine: A novel

Ladivine: A novel

From the hugely acclaimed author ofÂ Three Strong Womenâ€”â€œa masterpiece of narrative ingenuity and emotional extremesâ€ (The New York Times)â€”here is a harrowing and subtly crafted novel of a woman captive to a secret shame.

On the first Tuesday of every month, Clarisse RiviÃ¨re leaves her husband and young daughter and secretly takes the train to Bordeaux to visit her mother, Ladivine. Just as Clarisseâ€™s husband and daughter know nothing of Ladivine, Clarisse herself has hidden nearly every aspect of her adult life from this woman, whom she dreads and despises but also pities. Long ago abandoned by Clarisseâ€™s father, Ladivine works as a housecleaner and has no one but her daughter, whom she knows as Malinka.

After more than twenty-five years of this deception, the idyllic middle-class existence Clarisse has built from scratch can no longer survive inside the walls sheâ€™s put up to protect it. Her untold anguish leaves her cold and guarded, her loved ones forever trapped outside, looking in. When her husband, Richard, finally leaves her, Clarisse finds comfort in the embrace of a volatile local man, Freddy Moliger. With Freddy, she finally feels reconciled to, or at least at ease with, her true self. But this peace comes at a terrible price. Clarisse will be brutally murdered, and it will be left to her now-grown daughter, who also bears the name Ladivine without knowing why, to work out who her mother was and what happened to her.

A mesmerizing and heart-stopping psychological tale of a trauma that ensnares three generations of women, Ladivine proves Marie NDiaye to be one of Europeâ€™s great storytellers.

Translated from the French by Jordan Stump

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Knopf
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2016-04-26
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Knopf
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2016-04-26
Format	Kindle eBook

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