Heatwave: An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021

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I heard singing through the canvas, a long line of people dancing around my tent. I’m a little older now. I kissed a girl, then lost her. Oscar died. Oscar is dead because of me, because I did nothing. Because I didn’t move. And I didn’t move because at that moment I couldn’t. I would rather have died like him, and we could have watched each other die while the others danced.” Er ist extrem auf der Suche nach sich selbst, löst sich von seiner Familie und fühlt sich mit sich sehr allein. Der Autor hat wohl diese Jahre selbst noch sehr gut im Gedächtnis, da es ihm wirklich gut gelungen ist, diesen Charakter zu zeichnen. 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.

Heatwave by Victor Jestin | Goodreads

The story opens with him watching a suicide and making the conscious decision to not stop it. The reason being hinted at that this other boy had the attention of the girl he wanted to be with. Like when you loath another person and have that horrible fleeting thought, “Oh why don’t they just die and leave me alone then my life would be so much easier,” but in this instance he gets exactly what he wants and is filled with a general malaise. Léonard is 17 en brengt met zijn ouders, jongere broer en zus de laatste vakantiedagen op de camping door. 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 latest Scandinavian serial killer to Golden Age detective stories, we love our crime novels!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 Booker Prize-winner Banville is a heavyweight contender on the Historical Dagger longlist for April in Spain (Faber), while the Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger sees the award-winning Finnish author Antti Tuomainen with The Rabbit Factor (Orenda Books) and the French author Victor Jestin, for his dark, coming-of-age-novel Heatwave (Scribner) in the longlist .

Heatwave | Book by Victor Jestin | Official Publisher Page Heatwave | Book by Victor Jestin | Official Publisher Page

The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A true story of sex, crime and the meaning of justice, Julia Laite (Profile Books)Heatwave won the Prix de la vocation 2019 and the Prix Femina de Lycéens 2019 and it’s an intense, short, dark, suspenseful thriller set over the course of a weekend. It tells the story of Leonard, an awkward 17 year old boy enduring a family camping holiday in France and struggling to fit in with his peers. Blindsided’ by Caroline England in Criminal Pursuits: Crime Through Time edited by Samantha Lee Howe (Telos Publishing) A searing hot summer in the South of France: 17-year-old Léonard is spending the holidays on a camping ground with his parents and his siblings. We meet him around 24 hours before their departure, as Léo, by coincidence, witnesses the suicide of his friend Oscar. Paralyzed, he stands by as Oscar slowly strangles himself - and that's the opening scene of this short, impactful novella. Our protagonist doesn't dare to confess what he saw, even as the other guests and the police start searching for Oscar, he partakes in normal activities, joining the young crowd in their pursuit of parties, summer flings, and sex. The oppressive heat is joined by an oppressive tension, as Léo's feelings of guilt start to grow... Leonard promptly proceeds to drag Oscar to the dunes and buries him. For reasons unknown he decides to keep Oscar’s death a secret, carry on as normal and spend the remainder of his holiday as if nothing happened. His denial is made markedly easier by Luce, the girl he’s infatuated with, showing a sudden interest in him. In the blink of an eye, the pervasive heat, brightness and cheerfulness of the campers become considerably more bearable for our cynical narrator.

Heatwave by Victor Jestin - Audiobook | Scribd Heatwave by Victor Jestin - Audiobook | Scribd

Although it has a slice of the macabre running through it, it’s also a story of youth and summer. The embarrassment of adolescence was captured perfectly, while the image of the intense sun burning down on the players of this story definitely heightened the tension and discomfort. Léonard c’è dentro tutto, fino al collo e oltre, non è solo testimone, non è solo spettatore: è complice, è partecipe, è artefice. Man, this was bad. Kid witnesses someone die in what might have been an autoerotic asphyxiation accident. Kid buries the body, spends an entire day being maudlin (and that’s the most apt word for him) and being creepy with the local girls. Translated by Sam Taylor — French author Victor Jestin’s short yet forceful debut novel is part dark coming-of-age novel, part morality tale. Set over the span of a weekend, it tells the story of a 17-year-old who witnesses another teenager dying and chooses not to save his life even though he is able to.The headline Gold Dagger, awarded for the crime novel of the year, sees Hawkins nominated for A Slow Fire Burning (Doubleday), alongside Billingham’s Rabbit Hole (Sphere) and Imran Mahmood’s I Know What I Saw (Raven). Ray Celestin is also in contention for the award for Sunset Swing (Mantle), which has also received nominations for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for thriller of the year, and the Historical Dagger. A beautiful narrative that puts into play the kind of guilt that won’t quit a boy who’s alienated from his world and resistant to all its codes’ Telerama During a sleepless night, Leonard wanders to the beach where he witnesses a tragedy and does nothing to intervene. The existential question posed is: Is doing nothing the very worst thing a person can do? The references to the heat don’t only add to the atmosphere, Jestin also uses it to reference global warming and our ignorance of the climate crisis: “Every year it got hot earlier – this year it had been in February – and we had welcomed it without fear, happy to see the end of winter; we’d sat out on café terraces with no sense of foreboding about what it might mean. We didn’t sense the inferno coming. I wondered what temperature would finally be too hot.” Poi fa qualcosa di altrettanto irrimediabile, ma anche più assurdo: sotterra in spiaggia il corpo di Oscar sotto la sabbia di una duna.

Heatwave by Victor Jestin | Waterstones

Victor Jestin's debut novella centers around the question why Léo didn't stop Oscar, and why he didn't report what he saw and hid the corpse instead. It's all about the complexity of human nature and the atmosphere that is determined by the different associations with heat. I really enjoyed how the author insists on the enigmatic nature of the case he describes, how he doesn't take the easy route, how he brings the place to life and contrasts teenage impulses. L’atmosfera del campeggio, la musica martellante sparata dagli altoparlanti, gli annunci ripetuti, gli animatori ossessivi, il senso di perenne festa, la vacanza che impone il divertimento a ogni costo… Niente di questo aiuta Léonard, che appare sempre più un pesce fuori dall’acqua. Victor Jestin portrays with cruel exactitude the throes of an adolescent trapped in a secret too heavy to bear’ L’Obs

The young author of this first novel keeps all promises, with writing of a rare precision, mature and carnal... Moving and cinematic.”— La Vie 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.