The Child

Intense and bravely uncompromising. An adult study of pain, thwarted affection, and guarded privacies in a world at the edge of violent public breakdown. An impressive achievement. DAVID MALOUF, author of Ransom: A Novel and The Happy Life: The Search for Contentment in the Modern World

Simone and Claude live in a house with a lush garden, surrounded by a hedge that barely protects them from the growing violence and unrest in their low-income neighborhood. Simone mourns the loss of youth and possibility as Claude, a gym teacher who has been diagnosed with cancer, edges toward death. This is an unflinching portrait of a couple ravaged by illness and locked into mutual isolationthat is, until the arrival of a young boy brings hope and upsets their delicate danse macabre to devastating effect.

Pascale Kramer dissects romantic loves psychic carnage while unsentimentally revealing the unique beauty born of an...