Victor Jestin – författare

Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing.Winner of the Prix de la vocation 2019 Winner of the Prix Femina de lycéens 2019 Translated by Sam Taylor, translator ofLullabyby Leila Slimani,The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affairby Jol Dicker andHHhH by Laurent Binet Leonard is an outsider, a seventeen-year-old uncomfortable in his own skin who is forced to endure a family camping holiday in the South of France. Tired of awkwardly creeping out of beach parties after only a couple of beers, he chooses to spend the final Friday night of the trip in bed. However, when he cannot sleep due to the sound of wild carousing outside his tent, he gets up and goes for a walk. As he wanders among the dunes, he sees Oscar, one of the cooler kids, drunk in a playground, hanging by his neck from the ropes of a swing. Frozen into inaction, he watches Oscar struggle to breathe until finally his body comes loose and falls lifeless to the ground. Unable to think straight, he buries Oscar in the sand and returns to the campsite where, oppressed by the ferocious heat and the weight of what he did and did not do, he will try to spend the remaining hours of the holiday as if nothing had happened. Told over the space of a long weekend, this intense and brilliant novel is the story of an adolescent struggling to fit in. Heatwave is a gripping psychological thriller that poses the existential question:Is doing nothing sometimes the very worst thing you can do? This is a searingly vivid novel that depicts the torments of adolescence in a sensual, carnal way. But it is also a profound meditation on the mystery of evil, our deadly urges, and the savagery that lies deep within each of us. I loved the writing, which is spare but highly evocative, and I admired the way that the author used the enclosed world of the campsite to fuel the claustrophobic tension that mounts throughout.Leila Slimani, author ofLullabyandAdèle '';Eerie, propulsive, sexy, and unsettling, Victor Jestin''sHeatwavecarries the coming-of-age novel into darkly surprising new territory. With echoes ofthe films ofFrancois Ozon, this intense, slim novel is a hot summer read that lingers long after you finish the last page'' Laura Sims, author ofLooker '';A fiery page-turner'' Entertainment Weekly '';Jestin''s charged and chilling debut turns on a stifling vacation that descends from purgatory into a nightmarish inferno'' Publishers Weekly ? '';With a searing voice, Victor Jestin captures the stale air of tents, the cheap music, the guys disguised in pink bunny suits who force you to have fun, teenagers as poignant as they are idiotic, rage, desire, absurdity. In effect, scorching'' Grazia

From the author of Heatwave, a Waterstones Book of the MonthFrom the translator of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, Lullaby and HHhH 'The modern day successor to Francoise Sagan' Evening StandardThe Beach is the only nightclub in town, a bright yellow cuboid on the docks. For most people it is a place to drink, flirt and hook up. Most people grow out of The Beach; they leave town, have families and pursue careers.Arthur is not most people.For Arthur The Beach is a sanctuary: a place where he can go every night to express himself, a place where he can make friends, a place where he can be somebody.By day, Arthur is a loner. Shy and awkward, he fails at relationships and doesn’t even make the first rung of a career ladder. But by night, he is a star, electrifying the dancefloor and lighting up the night of those around him.But, as he nears 40, even those who work at The Beach start to worry about him. How long can he continue living the fantasy life of an adolescent? And, with nightclubs closing at an ever-increasing rate, will The Beach disappear before he is ready to leave it behind?In crystalline prose and with unmatched emotional acuity, Jestin examines the tension between society’s expectations and 21st Century realities, while introducing the world to one of literature’s great oddballs.'A frightening talent' Le Figaro Magazine'A dazzling second novel where his powerful words and his sense of rhythm make our intimate dance floors tremble.' Marie Claire'Victor Jestin keeps the reader in suspense, making him the best ally, almost the best friend of his lonely hero.' Le Monde des Livres

From the author of Heatwave, a Waterstones Book of the MonthFrom the translator of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, Lullaby and HHhH   'The modern day successor to Francoise Sagan' Evening Standard The Beach is the only nightclub in town, a bright yellow cuboid on the docks. For most people it is a place to drink, flirt and hook up. Most people grow out of The Beach; they leave town, have families and pursue careers. Arthur is not most people. For Arthur The Beach is a sanctuary: a place where he can go every night to express himself, a place where he can make friends, a place where he can be somebody. By day, Arthur is a loner. Shy and awkward, he fails at relationships and doesn’t even make the first rung of a career ladder. But by night, he is a star, electrifying the dancefloor and lighting up the night of those around him. But, as he nears 40, even those who work at The Beach start to worry about him. How long can he continue living the fantasy life of an adolescent? And, with nightclubs closing at an ever-increasing rate, will The Beach disappear before he is ready to leave it behind? In crystalline prose and with unmatched emotional acuity, Jestin examines the tension between society’s expectations and 21st Century realities, while introducing the world to one of literature’s great oddballs. 'A frightening talent' Le Figaro Magazine 'A dazzling second novel where his powerful words and his sense of rhythm make our intimate dance floors tremble.' Marie Claire'Victor Jestin keeps the reader in suspense, making him the best ally, almost the best friend of his lonely hero.' Le Monde des Livres    

From the author of Heatwave, a Waterstones Book of the MonthFrom the translator of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, Lullaby and HHhH 'The modern day successor to Francoise Sagan' Evening StandardThe Beach is the only nightclub in town, a bright yellow cuboid on the docks. For most people it is a place to drink, flirt and hook up. Most people grow out of The Beach; they leave town, have families and pursue careers.Arthur is not most people.For Arthur The Beach is a sanctuary: a place where he can go every night to express himself, a place where he can make friends, a place where he can be somebody.By day, Arthur is a loner. Shy and awkward, he fails at relationships and doesn’t even make the first rung of a career ladder. But by night, he is a star, electrifying the dancefloor and lighting up the night of those around him.But, as he nears 40, even those who work at The Beach start to worry about him. How long can he continue living the fantasy life of an adolescent? And, with nightclubs closing at an ever-increasing rate, will The Beach disappear before he is ready to leave it behind?In crystalline prose and with unmatched emotional acuity, Jestin examines the tension between society’s expectations and 21st Century realities, while introducing the world to one of literature’s great oddballs.'A frightening talent' Le Figaro Magazine'A dazzling second novel where his powerful words and his sense of rhythm make our intimate dance floors tremble.' Marie Claire'Victor Jestin keeps the reader in suspense, making him the best ally, almost the best friend of his lonely hero.' Le Monde des Livres

‘A short, sharp, shock of a novel… beautifully done’  Daily Mail'The modern day successor to Francoise Sagan' Evening Standard‘Jestin evokes adolescent turmoil with great delicacy and poignancy’ Times Literary Supplement'The Summer Page-Turner You Have To Read' WaterstonesWinner of the Prix de la vocation 2019Winner of the Prix Femina de lycéens 2019Longlisted for the Crime Writers Association 'Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger' 2022Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing.It is the end of August and the long summer holidays are drawing to a close. Seventeen-year-old Leonard is on a camping holiday with his family in the South of France. Awkward and ill at ease, he is an outsider who creeps away from parties unnoticed after a couple of drinks.On the final Friday of the trip, unable to sleep, Leonard goes for a walk and sees one of the boys from the campsite, Oscar, hanging from the rope of a playground swing. Leonard watches as the rope slowly strangles Oscar. Then, unable to think straight, he buries the body in the sand, and returns to his tent.The next day is the hottest in seventeen years. Disoriented by the oppressive heat, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce, Leonard spends the ensuing hours trying not to unravel. A literary sensation in France, Heatwave is an unsettling and evocative novel that examines our darkest impulses.Translated by Sam Taylor, translator of Lullaby by Leila Slimani, The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker and HHhH by Laurent Binet"This is a searingly vivid novel that depicts the torments of adolescence in a sensual, carnal way. But it is also a profound meditation on the mystery of evil, our deadly urges, and the savagery that lies deep within each of us. I loved the writing, which is spare but highly evocative, and I admired the way that the author used the enclosed world of the campsite to fuel the claustrophobic tension that mounts throughout." Leila Slimani, author of Lullaby‘Eerie, propulsive, sexy, and unsettling, Victor Jestin’s Heatwave carries the coming-of-age novel into darkly surprising new territory. With echoes of the films of Francois Ozon, this intense, slim novel is a hot summer read that lingers long after you finish the last page’ Laura Sims, author of Looker

Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing.An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021‘A short, sharp, shock of a novel… beautifully done’  Daily Mail 'The modern day successor to Francoise Sagan' Evening Standard ‘Jestin evokes adolescent turmoil with great delicacy and poignancy’ Times Literary Supplement''The Summer Page-Turner You Have To Read' WaterstonesWinner of the Prix de la vocation 2019 Winner of the Prix Femina de lycéens 2019 Translated by Sam Taylor, translator of Lullaby by Leila Slimani, The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker and HHhH by Laurent Binet Leonard is an outsider, a seventeen-year-old uncomfortable in his own skin who is forced to endure a family camping holiday in the South of France. Tired of awkwardly creeping out of beach parties after only a couple of beers, he chooses to spend the final Friday night of the trip in bed. However, when he cannot sleep due to the sound of wild carousing outside his tent, he gets up and goes for a walk. As he wanders among the dunes, he sees Oscar, one of the cooler kids, drunk in a playground, hanging by his neck from the ropes of a swing. Frozen into inaction, he watches Oscar struggle to breathe until finally his body comes loose and falls lifeless to the ground. Unable to think straight, he buries Oscar in the sand and returns to the campsite where, oppressed by the ferocious heat and the weight of what he did and did not do, he will try to spend the remaining hours of the holiday as if nothing had happened.   Told over the space of a long weekend, this intense and brilliant novel is the story of an adolescent struggling to fit in. Heatwave is a gripping psychological thriller that poses the existential question:Is doing nothing sometimes the very worst thing you can do?PRAISE FOR HEATWAVE: "This is a searingly vivid novel that depicts the torments of adolescence in a sensual, carnal way. But it is also a profound meditation on the mystery of evil, our deadly urges, and the savagery that lies deep within each of us. I loved the writing, which is spare but highly evocative, and I admired the way that the author used the enclosed world of the campsite to fuel the claustrophobic tension that mounts throughout." Leila Slimani, author of Lullaby ‘With a searing voice, Victor Jestin captures the stale air of tents, the cheap music, the guys disguised in pink bunny suits who force you to have fun, teenagers as poignant as they are idiotic, rage, desire, absurdity. In effect, scorching’ Grazia ‘A fiery page-turner’ Entertainment Weekly ‘Jestin’s charged and chilling debut turns on a stifling vacation that descends from purgatory into a nightmarish inferno’ Publishers Weekly ? ‘With a searing voice, Victor Jestin captures the stale air of tents, the cheap music, the guys disguised in pink bunny suits who force you to have fun, teenagers as poignant as they are idiotic, rage, desire, absurdity. In effect, scorching’ Grazia

‘A short, sharp, shock of a novel… beautifully done’  Daily Mail'The modern day successor to Francoise Sagan' Evening Standard‘Jestin evokes adolescent turmoil with great delicacy and poignancy’ Times Literary Supplement'The Summer Page-Turner You Have To Read' WaterstonesWinner of the Prix de la vocation 2019Winner of the Prix Femina de lycéens 2019Longlisted for the Crime Writers Association 'Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger' 2022Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing.It is the end of August and the long summer holidays are drawing to a close. Seventeen-year-old Leonard is on a camping holiday with his family in the South of France. Awkward and ill at ease, he is an outsider who creeps away from parties unnoticed after a couple of drinks.On the final Friday of the trip, unable to sleep, Leonard goes for a walk and sees one of the boys from the campsite, Oscar, hanging from the rope of a playground swing. Leonard watches as the rope slowly strangles Oscar. Then, unable to think straight, he buries the body in the sand, and returns to his tent.The next day is the hottest in seventeen years. Disoriented by the oppressive heat, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce, Leonard spends the ensuing hours trying not to unravel. A literary sensation in France, Heatwave is an unsettling and evocative novel that examines our darkest impulses.Translated by Sam Taylor, translator of Lullaby by Leila Slimani, The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker and HHhH by Laurent Binet"This is a searingly vivid novel that depicts the torments of adolescence in a sensual, carnal way. But it is also a profound meditation on the mystery of evil, our deadly urges, and the savagery that lies deep within each of us. I loved the writing, which is spare but highly evocative, and I admired the way that the author used the enclosed world of the campsite to fuel the claustrophobic tension that mounts throughout." Leila Slimani, author of Lullaby‘Eerie, propulsive, sexy, and unsettling, Victor Jestin’s Heatwave carries the coming-of-age novel into darkly surprising new territory. With echoes of the films of Francois Ozon, this intense, slim novel is a hot summer read that lingers long after you finish the last page’ Laura Sims, author of Looker

A mesmerizing, “fiery page-turner” (Entertainment Weekly) about a teenage boy on summer vacation who makes an irrevocable mistake and becomes trapped in a spiral of guilt and desire—in the tradition of Alice McDermott’s That Night and E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars.Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing. Seventeen-year-old Leo is sitting in an empty playground at night, listening to the sound of partying and pop music filtering in from the beach, when he sees another, more popular boy strangle himself with the ropes of the swings. Then, in a panic, Leo drags him to the beach and buries him. Over the next twenty-four hours, Leo wanders around the campsite like a sleepwalker, haunted by guilt and fear, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce. Meanwhile, the teenage summer rituals continue all around him—the fighting and flirting, the smell of salt and sunscreen, the tinny announcements from the loudspeaker, and above all, the crushing, relentless heat... A prizewinning sensation in France and now stunningly translated by Sam Taylor, Heatwave is Victor Jestin’s “charged and chilling” (Publishers Weekly) debut novel—a searing portrait of adolescent desire and recklessness, and secrets too big to keep. *Originally published in France under the title La Chaleur.

A mesmerizing, “fiery page-turner” (Entertainment Weekly) about a teenage boy on summer vacation who makes an irrevocable mistake and becomes trapped in a spiral of guilt and desire—in the tradition of Alice McDermott’s That Night and E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars.Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing. Seventeen-year-old Leo is sitting in an empty playground at night, listening to the sound of partying and pop music filtering in from the beach, when he sees another, more popular boy strangle himself with the ropes of the swings. Then, in a panic, Leo drags him to the beach and buries him. Over the next twenty-four hours, Leo wanders around the campsite like a sleepwalker, haunted by guilt and fear, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce. Meanwhile, the teenage summer rituals continue all around him—the fighting and flirting, the smell of salt and sunscreen, the tinny announcements from the loudspeaker, and above all, the crushing, relentless heat... A prizewinning sensation in France and now stunningly translated by Sam Taylor, Heatwave is Victor Jestin’s “charged and chilling” (Publishers Weekly) debut novel—a searing portrait of adolescent desire and recklessness, and secrets too big to keep. *Originally published in France under the title La Chaleur.