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Fiction Literary

Not Everybody Lives the Same Way

A Novel

by (author) Jean-Paul Dubois

translated by David Homel

Publisher
The Overlook Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2022
Category
Literary, 21st Century
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781419752223
    Publish Date
    Mar 2022
    List Price
    $33.00

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Description

International bestseller Not Everybody Lives the Same Way is a powerfully original and unusual novel. Masterfully translated by David Homel and brilliantly animated by Jean-Paul Dubois’s keen feeling for humanity and intense revolt against all forms of injustice, it asks the question: What does it takes to live a dignified life?

Winner of the Prix Goncourt for Fiction

Paul Hansen is in prison. He’s been in this prison on the outskirts of Montreal for a couple of years now, sharing a cell with a murderous Hells Angel who often reminds Paul that he could kill him at any moment. What did Paul do to end up here? And why does he jeopardize his life and release by refusing to show remorse?

Before prison, there were his parents. There were his friends at the Excelsior, the luxury apartment complex where Paul worked as caretaker as well as restorer of souls and comforter of the afflicted. And there was his partner, Winona, an intrepid seaplane pilot, and their beloved dog, Nouk. Many of those closest to him are gone now, but Paul still talks to them; they appear in his dreams and as ghosts in his cell.

From France in the sixties to the asbestos mines of Québec, from the sand dunes of the peninsula where the Baltic connects to the North Sea to the wild lakes and mountains of Canada, Jean-Paul Dubois’s extraordinary novel Not Everybody Lives the Same Way, follows this man, Paul Hansen, as he reviews his life. A life of equilibrium, it has given Paul both tragedy and gifts––that is, until the moment when fate presents him with someone capable of breaking his balance.

About the authors

Jean-Paul Dubois was born in 1950 in Toulouse, where he now lives, and is a journalist and author. Not Everybody Lives the Same Way was awarded France’s top literary honor, the Prix Goncourt, in 2019. It has sold more than half a million copies in France, with rights sold in more than 20 countries. He is the author of numerous critically acclaimed novels and travel pieces, many of which were inspired by his time in America.

Jean-Paul Dubois' profile page

David Homel was born in Chicago in 1952 and left that city in 1970 for Paris, living in Europe the next few years on odd jobs and odder couches. He has published eight novels, from Electrical Storms in 1988 to The Teardown, which won the Paragraph Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction in 2019. He has also written young adult fiction with Marie-Louise Gay, directed documentary films, worked in TV production, been a literary translator, journalist, and creative writing teacher. He has translated four books for Linda Leith Publishing: Bitter Roase (2015), (2016), Nan Goldin: The Warrior Medusa (2017) and Taximan (2018). Lunging into the Underbrush is his first book of non-fiction. He lives in Montreal.

David Homel's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“Engaging”

Publishers Weekly

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