My Phantom Husband

First US edition. 12mo. Pp. [vi], 154. Beige paper-covered boards lettered and ruled in black to spine. Jacket design by Hall Smyth, BAD. Translated from the French by Esther Allen. First published in France as Naissance des fantômes in 1998.

Signed by author on the title page, along with a droll sketch she's drawn of a phantom.

Darrieussecq's second novel. A deceptively simple story, about a deserted wife whose loneliness and fright become tangible. When her husband goes off to buy a loaf of bread, never to return, the narrator's life falls apart. She enters a distorted world, mesmerized by visions and besieged by childhood terrors. A quirky manifestation of the physicality of absence, written in a clear, precise, minimalist style, and a reaction to sudden loss and the disruption of daily routine.

A graduate of the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, Darrieussecq was acclaimed as France's "best young novelist" by The New Yorker in 1997 upon publication of her first novel, Truismes, or Pig Tales in its English translation. "An author of pointed, original vision, imaginative zest and creative aplomb." –Financial Times