An Impossible Love

"The most recently translated autofiction by controversial French literary phenomenon Angot brings her unflinching intelligence to a terrible childhood trauma . . . Described without overstatement or sensationalism, raw and honest, [Rachel and Christine's] experience rings brutally true . . . Disturbing, powerful, a deeply personal story that is also searingly political."–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"An illuminating account of a mother and daughter's complicated love." –- Publishers Weekly"Christine Angot is one of the bravest women writing in France today, and Armine Kotin Mortimer’s English translation of this novel is lucid and powerful. Incest was among the most difficult books I’ve ever read. Shockingly raw, erratic, poetic, and chaotic, it put you in the center of the author’s self-loathing. But the restraint and emotional range displayed in An Impossible Love makes this book a more painful story." –Amanda Holmes Duffy, Washington Independent Review of Books "An Impossible Love immerses the reader in both the solipsism of the two lovers and the wider world of French society in the 1950s . . . Angot has suggested that there is no distinction between real and fake, nor true and false in literary writing. There is only ‘alive prose’ and ‘dead prose’. There are words that remain on the page, and those that somehow manage to transcend themselves. Angot’s writing lives." –Alice Blackhurst, New Left Review"I was enthralled by An Impossible Love from the first page to the last.  Christine Angot brilliantly traces the minute fluctuations of emotion in her trio of characters, as well as the evasions, omissions and deceptions implicit in every kind of love.  A daring and impressive performance."–Lynne Sharon Schwartz"A compelling chimera . . . A dissection of how power can be a potent aphrodisiac to those who wield it, a poison to those on its receiving end . . . Angot’s method is cunning and confrontational, delivering a shocking sucker punch to any of us that might be tiring of autofiction."–Heavy Feather Review"[An Impossible Love] has a formal, dispassionate style of language. Towards the end, this yields to an emotional depth when mother and daughter . . . reach a point of clarity and concord about the person who ruined their lives." –Declan O'Driscoll, Irish TimesPraise for Incest "A formally daring and passionate performance of the depths of human self-loathing, and the sufferings of attachment. It cut deep inside me with its truths. In every moment of reading it, I both wanted to keep reading it and wanted to write. I don't think I will ever forget this book." — Sheila Heti  "A maximalist in the art of emotion, Angot unmasks with frightening precision the roiling heart and the sharp edges of lust, loathing, and scorn lodged within love's fossil record. This is a book that points you toward the subterranean roots of your own emotions, the intricacies and murk we cover up in the name of normal daily operations." — Alexandra Kleeman "At times reminiscent of playwright Sarah Kane, particularly in her incantatory free associations . . . Incest is remarkably prescient. Christine Angot pinpoints how technology antagonizes mental health; how a lack of immediate reply can give the obsessive mind no room to breath." — Rebecca Watson, The Times Literary Supplement"A sensation in France, [Incest is a] novel in the form of a wild confession of a life filled with trauma." — The New York Times"Given Angot's antagonism toward conventional syntax, the English translation, by Tess Lewis, is a feat of perspicuity… When "L'Inceste" was first published, an interviewer asked Angot what she hoped to achieve. "My ambition is to be unmanageable," she said. "That people swallow me and at the same time cannot digest me." — H. C. Wilentz, The New Yorker"Angot's writing reclaims the confession as a radical act–spiritual, even… At its core, Incest is a true testament to the subversive power of literature, in that it transmutes the violation of incest into connection with the reader." — Elizabeth Baird, The Millions"Christine Angot, who despises proper sentiment, has a fascinating, exhilarating, dazzling sensitivity." — Yann Moix, Le Figaro littéraire