The End of Eddy by Edouard Louis: book review

The End of Eddy (2014, English version 2017) is the memoir of Edouard Louis, growing up in northern France, living below the poverty line. It is about the escape from an unbearable childhood and the search for freedom.

Born in 1992, Edouard Louis begins his memoir by describing his life when he is 10 years old, with his brother and sister, a violent father, and a detached and distant mother: ‘’From my childhood I have no happy memories.’’ He describes his feelings of powerlessness: ‘’That family negligence, class-based negligence, means that I still suffer from acute pain, sleepless nights …’’

Eddy was not like the other boys – he was ‘’a little bit strange’’ and football what ‘’just not [his] thing.’’ He tried running away from home, but he was dragged back. One day his escape arrived – in the form of boarding school. Not just any boarding school. A school with boys like him.

Writing his memoir at the age of 22, Edouard Louis (who changed his name in 2012 from Eddy Bellegueule) exposes his childhood while his emotions are still fresh and raw. It is a life where social exclusion, discrimination, domination, bullying, and brutality are all-encompassing, such that a safe haven is not easily found: home, school, and the streets thrive on a total lack of tolerance for anyone who is ‘’different.’’

The transitional theme from early childhood to becoming a man is told honestly and poignantly, cathartic for the author and psychologically revealing for the reader. Told in a simple vernacular language, violence, although prevalent in the book, is the vehicle not the voice, because Edouard Louis is not angry. The author is a survivor, skilled in dissecting self-preservation through a very personal lens.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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