A haunting novel of suspense from the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature
In the stillness of his Paris apartment, Jean Daragane has built a life of total solitude. Then a surprising phone call shatters the silence of an unusually hot September, and the threatening voice on the other end of the line leaves Daragane wary but irresistibly curious. Almost at once, he finds himself entangled with a shady gambler and a beautiful, fragile young woman, who draw Daragane into the mystery of a decades-old murder. The investigation will force him to confront the memory of a trauma he had all but buried. With So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood Patrick Modiano adds a new chapter to a body of work whose supreme psychological insight and subtle, atmospheric writing have earned him worldwide renown — including the Nobel Prize in Literature. This masterly novel, now translated into twenty languages, penetrates the deepest enigmas of identity and compels us to ask whether we ever know who we truly are.
"Modiano is an ideal writer to gorge on ... in part because [his books] make up a system as beguiling and complete as any in contemporary literature ... [So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood] set[s] up a moody, delectable noir."—The New Yorker
"A suspenseful inquiry into memory and storytelling, including the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives. It’s the best kind of mystery, the kind that never stops haunting you. A–."—Entertainment Weekly
"[Modiano's] fiction resonates so deeply [because] it occupies an elusive middle ground between place and personality ... Resonant ... Compelling."—Los Angeles Times
"Euan Cameron's atmospheric translation does ample justice to this spectral tale."—Independent
"There is intrigue, there are missing persons, there are affairs of the heart and body ... The beauty of [Modiano's] prose shines once again in this deep, short read."—Paste
"Moody ... Lyrical ... Vintage Modiano, and a pleasure for fans of neonoir fiction."—Kirkus Reviews
