What really happened in 1986 in Mare-les-Champs, a suburban village on the outskirts of Paris? More than thirty years after a series of tragic events, a woman returns to the place where she grew up to uncover its hidden secrets — those of Suzanne, a young schoolteacher who had just arrived; Béatrice, the undisputed queen of the small community; and her daughter Élise, the rebellious teenager. Between unspoken words and false fronts, she reopens wounds that everyone would rather forget.
Le Lotissement transports us deep into the heart of the 1980s, in a France undergoing profound change. The racism in society, the rise of low-income housing projects, the Chernobyl disaster: Claire Vesin exposes collective memory, the twists and turns of desire, and the quiet violence of social relations. A sharp, gripping novel where tension steadily builds until it reaches a blazing climax.
