Il était une ville (Once Upon a Town)
« Il était une ville » is Thomas B. Reverdy’s new novel. His precedent work, « Les évaporés », published in 2013 by Flammarion, won him the Grand Prix de la SGDL and the prix Joseph Kessel.
« Il était une ville » allows the reader to approach in a different and very interesting way the brutal collapse of Detroit in the United States. The consequences of the 2008 financial crisis on people of all ages and status is very well demonstrated.
Through multiple stories unfolding at the same time, the reader is able to live how it felt to be in Detroit during that critical period, for citizens of all social classes who stayed either by choice or because they had no other option.
Thomas B. Reverdy’s high-quality writing style is particularly refreshing and full of surprises. The reader is immersed deep in a Detroit which, instead of being the dynamic city around which the suburbs conglomerated, became a black hole from which escaped the citizens that could afford it.
Without being a historical novel, it is nonetheless a work that aims to do something more than to simply entertain the reader. I completed the reading of this book with new knowledge on the multiple life aspects of people living in a suddenly deserted megacity.
A rare book, surprisingly mature for such a young writer.
Title: Il était une ville
Author: Thomas B. Reverdy
Edition : Flammarion
ISBN : 978-2-0813-4281-9
©2015