Home | Books By Year | Books from 2006
The Suicide Shop
Buy The Suicide Shop now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the book. And once you've experienced the book, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'The Suicide Shop' is a 2006 black comedy novel by the French writer Jean Teul. It is set in a future near-apocalyptic city in a world suffering the ravages of severe climate change, where almost everybody is depressed. Symptomatic of this, the pivotal Tuvache family is named after a trio of celebrity suicides patriarch "Mishima" Tuvache is meant to evoke Yukio Mishima, while their eldest son Vincent Tuvache is named after Vincent van Gogh and their daughter Marilyn Tuvache is meant to mirror Marilyn Monroe. Their younger son Alain is named after British mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing, but proves to be the white sheep of the family.
Synopsis
Within the aforementioned Tuvache family, which runs a shop for suicide equipment amidst these dire circumstances and instructs customers on their use, Alain is born and almost immediately begins to subvert its melancholic orientation. The family has two other children it is the anorexic oldest brother, Vincent, who is the creator of the shop's suicide-oriented hardware, and he has an equally maladjusted and obese sister, Marilyn, who hates her life. Over time, Mishima, Vincent and Marilyn try to break Alain's independent, optimistic outlook on life but never succeed. As time goes on, first Vincent and Marilyn, and then Mishima, are subverted by their exuberant sibling and offspring, until the Suicide Shop transmutes into a novelty store, sending up its earlier macabre and melancholic orientation. In a twist, however, it is Alain who ends his life at the close of the book, aware that he has provided a 'raison d'tre' to reject melancholy and morbidity within his family and the surrounding community.
Film
The novel has been adapted into an animated feature film, 'The Suicide Shop', directed by Patrice Leconte.
Reception
Mohammed Assaoui reviewed the book for 'Le Figaro', and wrote that Teul's humour has "the right distance neither too light in the content, nor too heavy in the drollery , a nice dose of derision, and the imagination necessary for such a subject."
English Translation
*Jean Teule: 'The Suicide Shop' (Translated by Sue Dyer): London: Gallic Books: 2008:
See also
* 2006 in literature
* Contemporary French literature
References
Category:2006 novels
Category:Black comedy books
Category:French-language novels
Category:Fiction about suicide
Category:French novels adapted into films
Category:ditions Julliard books
Buy The Suicide Shop now from Amazon
<-- Return to books from 2006