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A musty bar in off-season Cannon Beach, Oregon, provides the setting for an unsuspecting Frenchman¿s introduction to the many ways life can go wrong for the unlucky in America. He listens as the barflies nightly recount their tales of woe¿betrayal, broken families, financial ruin. Though they seem at first to tolerate the newcomer¿s presence and sympathy, a tide of violence is rising, one he perceives only dimly until it is too late to escape. Made doubly powerful by her poetic fascination with the violence and volatility of the American landscape itself, Montalbetti¿s novel is a thrilling study of the senseless cruelty disappointed men are capable of.
About the author
Christine Montalbetti is an award-winning French novelist, essayist, critic and professor of literature at the University of Paris VIII. Nothing but Waves and Wind was inspired by a trip she took to the west coast of Oregon, where the ocean and the proximity of Mount St. Helens fueled her imagination, and gave rise to a series of down-and-out characters whose violence and unpredictability seems determined by their surroundings.Jane Kuntz has translated nine works of fiction for Dalkey Archive. She holds a doctorate in Francophone Literature, and spent eighteen years in Tunisia. She now lives and works in Urbana, Illinois. Her most recent translation for Stanford University Press is History of the Grandparents I Never Had, by Ivan Jablonka (2016).
Summary
Made especially powerful by her poetic fascination with the violence and volatility of the American landscape itself, Montalbetti’s novel is a thrilling study of the senseless cruelty disappointed men are capable of.
Additional text
“Montalbetti’s books are innovative, compelling, and slyly enticing constructions which provide some of the finest readerly experiences that French fiction currently has to offer.”
