Secret

Description

'The day after I turned fifteen, I finally discovered what I'd always known.' Growing up in post-war Paris, the sickly only child of glamorous parents, the narrator invents a make-believe brother - older, stronger, more brilliant than he can ever be. It is only when he talks to a family friend that he discovers his imaginary sibling had a real predecessor: a half-brother whose death in the camps is part of a buried family secret he was never intended to unearth. A family haunted by secrets of the past: an illicit love, a lost child, a devastating betrayal dating back to WWII - a novel based on the author's own family and already a bestseller in Europe.

PHILIPPE GRIMBERT is a psychoanalyst. He is the author of several works of non-fiction and a novel, Paul's Little Dress. He lives in Paris.

'Secret is a spare, haunting, brilliantly poised evocation of the way experiences of war, pain, and shame, even when unspoken, percolate through the family to shape and distort new generations.' Lisa Appignanesi 'Reads as easily as a children's tale, yet packs a grown-up punch.' Independent 'A slim little book - quick, but heavy with terror. Secret is a marvel.' Financial Times