A revelatory meditation on class and consumer culture, from 2022 Nobel
laureate Annie Ernaux
"A dryly charming look at the way the French live now, through the sharp
eyes of its most acclaimed chronicler."--Kirkus Reviews
For half a century, the French writer Annie Ernaux has transgressed the
boundaries of what stories are considered worth telling, what subjects
worth exploring. In this probing meditation, Ernaux turns her attention
to the phenomenon of the big-box superstore, a ubiquitous feature of
modern life that has received scant attention in literature.
Recording her visits to a store near Paris for over a year, she captures
the world that exists within its massive walls. Through Ernaux's eyes,
the superstore emerges as "a great human meeting place, a spectacle"--a
flashy, technologically advanced incarnation of the ancient marketplace
where capitalism, cultural production, and class converge, dictating our
rhythms of desire. With her relentless powers of observation, Ernaux
takes the measure of a place we thought we knew, calling us to question
the experiences we overlook and to gaze more deeply into ordinary life.