Here we go. In mid-August, the idea was to cover the stars of the new season, such as Abel Quentin, Mélissa Da Costa, Gaël Faye, Kamel Daoud, Maylis de Kerangal, Alice Zeniter and Olivier Guez, who are already doing well, or Emma Becker, Amélie Nothomb, Michael Cunningham, Nathan Hill, who had not yet been published when the Top 30 of our rankings closed on August 18. First-time novelists, who are still in the firing line, will benefit from their own special files.
But what about second novels, which are so tricky to conceive? As we know, the exercise is difficult: author of a first novel with low sales, the next one can sound the death knell; once it is successfully released, you are then expected to deliver, at the risk of being accused of being the author of a single book. Gaël Faye will certainly miss the axe: his Jacarandareleased eight years after his mega-seller Small Countryis experiencing a meteoric rise – it is true that its publisher, Grasset, believes in it wholeheartedly with a print run of 120,000 copies.
But the others? Let’s not forget them, so that their second novels don’t turn into second novels. They abound this fall, and are of quality. In the first category, that of discreet releases, we will point out Romane Lafore, who publishes The Confession at Flammarion (after Beautiful unfaithful2021); Benjamin de Laforcade, author of Berlin for all at Gallimard (his Red naked date of 2022); Guillaume Perilhou, who signs The Serpent’s Crown at the Observatory two years later They will kill your sons ; Shane Haddad, with Love Gilat POL, after Toni in short in 2021; Avril Ventura, who publishes The Best Part of Themselves at Alma Editeur (his What is missingat Seuil dates from 2008); Johanna Krawczyk, and her Dance of the Forgotten (EHO), after Before her published in 2021, or Nicolas Garma-Berman, author of The Thickness of Dawn (Belfond) two years later The Girl with Dust Feathers. Also note the release of The Better Life by Etienne Klein, whose The Flights (Gallimard) was awarded the Goncourt prize for best first novel in 2022.
Among the clan of former best-sellers, there appears Maud Ventura, the author of My husband – 360,000 copies at L’Iconoclaste in 2021 – and today Famous, and Marie Vingtras, who launches The Fierce Souls at L’Olivier, three years later Blizzard.
We know many former first-time writers which have suffered serious slowdowns, so much so that in 2000 Daniel Pennac came to their rescue by creating a second novel prize (now defunct) and a festival is dedicated to them every spring in Grignan. To warm the hearts of all these budding writers, we will recall that after their thunderous entry onto the literary scene, JMG Le Clézio (The Minutes in 1963), Jean Echenoz (The Greenwich Meridian in 1979) and Jean-Philippe Toussaint (The Bathroom in 1985) had the fate that we know. And that Joël Dicker reached the clouds with his 2nd novel, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. From there to prematurely abandoning one’s original profession, patience, patience. There is nothing more worrying than seeing unconfirmed authors “now devoting themselves entirely to writing”.
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