CHANGE
by Édouard Louis
Translated by John Lambert
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
256 pages, $27.
EDOUARD LOUIS’ memoir Changer: Méthode, published in France in 2021, has recently been translated into English by John Lambert under the title Change. The work functions as a sequel to The End of Eddy, Louis’ inaugural autobiographical novel, which I reviewed in these pages in 2017 (Sept.-Oct. issue). At that time, I made a connection between the French presidential election of that year, the rise of the extremist right-wing National Front party headed by Marine Le Pen, and the homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic population depicted in the memoir. Since then, the presidential election of 2022 pitted the same two candidates against each other (sound familiar?) with Emmanuel Macron as the eventual winner. Similarly, Louis’ new installment stages some of the problems already depicted in The End of Eddy, giving the reader a serious dose of déjà vu.
Eduardo Febles is a professor of French literature in the Dept. of Modern Languages at Simmons University.
