Here is a literary sorbet for a hot summer. The first book to appear in English from prize-winning Swiss novelist Roland Buti, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell, is set in the European heatwave of 1976. To our narrator, 13-year-old Gus, it seems a torpid time with “the earth as hard as a turtle’s shell” and home life boring him, but change is on the way.
Ostensibly the drama is driven by a stranger coming to stay with Gus’s family – one of the oldest gimmicks around – but this is a trick of a book. It hides its turmoil behind everyday details, often beautifully observed (like a fridge’s “brief, electric shudder of exaltation”), and the story’s emotional heart lies in the animals as much as the people.
A beloved and now dying horse, an elderly dog and a lame dove all stand for bigger things. “She wants to die standing up,” says Gus’s grandfather of Bagatelle the horse. “Not on her knees, not lying down, but standing up.” Little by little, what seemed a gentle coming-of-age story overturns the reader’s expectations until it arrives at an apocalyptic conclusion.
• Year of the Drought by Roland Buti and translated by Charlotte Mandell is published by Old Street. To order a copy for £9.34 (RRP £10.99) go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
