The Ninth Life of Louis Drax - Softcover

Jensen, Liz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1632866218 ISBN 13: 9781632866219

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2016

Synopsis

Nine-year-old Louis Drax is a problem child: bright, precocious, deceitful, and dangerously accident-prone. When he falls off a cliff during a picnic, the accident seems almost predestined.

Louis miraculously survives--but the family has been shattered. Louis' father has vanished, his mother is in shock, and Louis lies in a deep coma from which he may never emerge.

In a renowned coma clinic, a specialist tries to coax Louis back to consciousness. But the boy defies medical logic, startling the doctor out of his safe preconceptions, and drawing him inexorably into the dark heart of Louis' buried world. Only Louis holds the key to the mystery surrounding his fall--and he can't communicate. Or can he?

About this title

About the Author:

Liz Jensen's critically acclaimed fiction spans numerous genres. She has been shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and thrice nominated for the Orange Prize, and her books have been translated into twenty languages. Her most recent novel is The Uninvited. Jensen splits her time between London and Copenhagen.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. Louis Drax isn't like other children. The morbidly imaginative and sharply intuitive boy from a provincial city in France has survived eight suspicious accidents, one for each year of his life. On his ninth birthday, Louis suffers a mysterious fall from a cliff and ends up in Dr. Pascal Dannachet's experimental coma clinic, where the truth of his most recent mishap will be revealed. So begins British novelist Jensen's fourth book (War Crimes for the Home, etc.), a fiercely intelligent psychological thriller told from the alternating perspectives of the comatose Louis and the professionally conflicted Dr. Dannachet. As the French police search for Pierre Drax, the prime suspect in his son's fall, Louis negotiates the unconscious world with Gustave, his grotesque, bandaged imaginary companion, and Dr. Dannachet reluctantly falls in love with Louis's mother, Natalie. Behind the many twists and turns that ensue is a multilayered, genuinely convincing emotional drama that adds substance to the suspense. Families are torn apart, scientists are confounded by the miraculous, and the human heart unleashes its many secrets. Jensen's gift for black humor and off-kilter narratives shines throughout this page-turner, and her understanding of fractured psyches and their ability to heal is remarkable. The idiosyncrasies of her peculiar characters only make them more engaging, and at the end of Jensen's gripping tale, the reader is left eager for more.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1632866218
• ISBN 13: 9781632866219
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240