The Book I Didnt Want to Write [Hardcover]

The Book Toute la France is Talking About, Now Available in EnglishLiterature doesnt stop bullets. On the other hand, it can stop a finger from ending up on a trigger. Perhaps. Its a bet worth making.Erwan Larher was enjoying a rock concert in Paris Bataclan Theater on November 13, 2015, when the firing started. In this genre-bending, deeply moving and unexpected memoir, Larher reflects on what the gruesome terror attack meant to him and to others.The Book I Didnt Want to Writetranscends bearing witness. Larhers voice is intertwined with othershis partner, his father, the two friends who were going to come but didntto create a deeply moving collective chronicle of the most violent night in French history since World War II. He recounts not only how such an act affected him and his loved ones, but the thousands who lived through that night, the millions who followed the event through media, and even the attackers themselves.You were in the wrong place at the wrong time; youre a miracle, not a victim, he writes. Larher is anything but self-pitying. The book is all the more remarkable in its stoic, bold approach: perhaps to be expected from one of Frances most beloved rock-n-roll novelist with a suitably gritty look at the world and at words. There is no tearful history, unhealthy voyeurism or grudge-settling. Instead, Larher explains how he must, write around because you are a novelist and not a chronicler, because you can only shape a text by appeasing literature.The Book I Didnt Want to Writeis remarkable in both its construction and content. It achieves what few titles canand exactly what Larher set out to doto remind us of lifes emotional and artistic depths despite tragedy. It is a masterful slap in the face and a hymn to life.The Book I Didnt Want to Writebrings grace into life.Philippe Jaenada - Le Monde des livresA perilous exercise that Erwan Larter pulls off brilliantly, dignified in his suffering, going beyolc"