An English translation can be provided on demand
An English translation can be provided on demand
Droits / Rights

Catherine Leroux

Le mur mitoyen

(The Party Wall)

328 pages | Novembre 2014

7500 copies sold!

Catherine Leroux’s The Party Wall shifts between and ties together stories about pairs joined in surprising ways. A woman learns that she may not be the biological mother of her own son despite having given birth to him; a brother and sister unite, as their mother dies, to search for their long-lost father; two young sisters take a detour home, unaware of the tragedy that awaits; and a political couple—when the husband accedes to power in a post-apocalyptic future state—is shaken by the revelation of their own shared, if equally unknown, history.

Lyrical, intelligent, and profound, The Party Wall is luminously human, a surreally unforgettable journey through the barriers that can both separate us and bring us together.

Optioned by audiovisual producer

Prix France-Québec
Finaliste - Prix Giller
Finaliste - Grand Prix du livre de Montréal
Première sélection - Prix des libraires du Québec
Coup de coeur Renaud-Bray
Sélection « On aime » Archambault
Première sélection du Prix IMPAC Dublin

Rights sold

English (World)

Biblioasis

France

Denoël

Reviews

Publishers Weekly

‘…superbly crafted…Leroux skillfully reveals the inner worlds of her achingly human characters and the intricate bonds that connect them to each other. Images from this beautiful and moving book will haunt readers.’

Ian McGillis

Montreal Gazette

‘A revelation… an emotionally affecting, intellectually stimulating examination of separation and connection.’

Sean Michaels, author of the Giller Prize winning Us Conductors

‘Catherine Leroux writes with a startling grace. Her vision is clear-eyed and true, her heart is as big as sky and bay. The Party Wall’s mothers, orphans, Olympians and prime ministers seem like living, breathing people. And they reveal, beat by beat, that the things that divide us also knit us together’

The Globe and Mail

‘Initially, The Party Wall reads like a collection of linked stories; past the halfway mark, however, it reveals itself as something more intricate and cumulative… A surprising, carefully structured novel that for English readers will bring to mind David Mitchell, this feels much more expansive than its page count.’

Montreal Review of Books

‘…an intoxicating blend of the familiar and the uncanny, brilliantly executed…The Party Wall has the narrative force of a Hollywood film, while also offering richly executed portraits of the characters’ interior lives.’

Winnipeg Review

‘…full of insightful passages, dynamic characters and surprising situations. The Party Wall is a searching investigation of familial ties of biology and biography and the complex ways in which self-discovery affects our relationships.’

Martha Sharpe

Flying Books

‘[T]his book’s sensibility is as unique as the situations Catherine Leroux creates for her characters … The pacing is so subtle, the leaps and links among the storylines so imaginative, it’s unlike anything I’ve read in a long time.’

Le Devoir

‘With this ambitious novel, both in its theme and in its architecture, Catherine Leroux once again demonstrates her strong and penetrating writing.’

Catherine Leroux

Autrice | Traductrice

Catherine Leroux

Catherine Leroux is the author of three highly praised novels and an innovative sequence of short stories. Her first novel, La marche en forêt (2011), was a finalist for Quebec’s Booksellers’ Prize. Her bestselling second novel, The Party Wall, won the France-Quebec Prize, and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Dublin IMPAC Award. In the United States, The Party Wall was a prestigious Indies Introduce selection. Leroux’s story sequence Madame Victoria won Quebec’s Adrienne Choquette Prize and was a finalist for the Booksellers’ Prize. The Future won the Jacques Brossard Prize and was a finalist for the Imaginary Horizons Prize. Catherine Leroux works as a translator and an editor in Montreal. She was awarded the 2016 Governor General’s Literary Award for translation.

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