Real Life

by Adeline Dieudonné

Translated by Roland Glasser

World Editions    2020

234 pages     Literary

A coming-of-age story about an abusive father, an abused mother, and a protective big sister trying to save her little brother suffering from PTSD after a horrifying tragedy. This is the debut novel from Belgian author, Dieudonné, translated into English after winning several awards in Europe.

The narrator is the young girl who begins the tale at about age 10 and ends when she commits an unspeakable crime at about age 16. The two young children see the ice cream man die in an accident, and Sam, who is about 5 at the time, has a terrible time recovering from the trauma. He retreats to their father's trophy room, which is filled with the spoils of all his hunting trips. It is supposed to be off-limits for the children, and they are both a bit afraid of the room's contents, particularly the hyena. The girl, who remains unnamed, tries to invent a time machine ala "Back to the Future" to whisk the two of them back to the time before the accident, so that Sam can grow up unscarred. Her interest in time travel leads her to a major interest in Physics, and we see the depth of her intelligence.

The narrator is able to describe her life in great and beautiful detail. For example, this is her description of her entry into middle school: "The boys began to chase the girls and the girls played at being women. This whole little world was in effervescence, completely absorbed in the great hormonal muddle. Each person sported the proof of their admission to puberty like a trophy." Sometimes I felt that perhaps her thoughts, her musings, and her observations were way too mature for her purported age, but I enjoyed the brilliance of the writing none-the-less.

This is the third or fourth book I have read recently about parents not being responsible for their children, i.e. the abandonment in The Dutch House and the escape in This Tender Land. One begins to believe that all children suffer greatly in childhood. Even my childhood favorite, The Secret Garden, is about two children treated badly. Real Life is perhaps an extreme example of childhood mistreatment, so that readers who are sensitive to childhood trauma may find this a hard read.

The Kirkus review closes with this analysis: "Dieudonné's startling debut tackles dark themes with grace, wit, and sincerity."  The reviewer calls it “furiously tender.” It will be interesting to see how the author’s career develops. I hope she will be able to move beyond childhood trauma as a theme.