The Laws of the Skies
by Grégoire Courtois trans. Rhonda Mullins
Description
Twelve six-year-olds and their three adult chaperones head into the woods on a camping trip. None of them make it out alive.
The Laws of the Skies follows the terrified children as they scatter into the night to escape danger, dressed only in their pyjamas. A harrowing story of those days in the woods, of illness, poisoning, and accidents; of a love triangle among tots; a pint-sized hero; and a child on a murderous rampage that comes to a grisly end. Part fairy tale, part horror story, this macabre fable takes us through the minds of all the members of this doomed party, murderers and murdered alike.
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Rights Information
Rights Held: World English
Reviews
‘Like Lord of the Flies, The Laws of the Skies suggests that there is an inherent evil in certain children, one that emerges in nature, and that it’s best to keep the kids at home lest they go wild.’ – New York Times Book Review
‘Courtois writes that “a story without a point destroys civilization a little,” and far from being an exercise in idle cruelty, this wicked novel plumbs the darkest reaches of childhood fears and finds plenty to be afraid of.’ – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Author Biography
Grégoire Courtois lives and works in Burgundy, where he runs the independent bookstore Obliques, which he bought in 2011. A novelist and playwright, he has published three novels with Le Quartanier: Révolution (2011), Suréquipée (2015), and Les lois du ciel (2016). In 2013 he founded Caractères, an international book festival in Auxerre, which he continues to run.
Rhonda Mullins is a writer and translator. She received the 2015 Governor General's Literary Award for Twenty-One Cardinals, her translation of Jocelyne Saucier's Les héritiers de la mine. And the Birds Rained Down, her translation of Jocelyne Saucier’s Il pleuvait des oiseaux, was a CBC Canada Reads Selection. It was also shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award, as were her translations of Élise Turcotte’s Guyana and Hervé Fischer’s The Decline of the Hollywood Empire. Rhonda currently lives in Montréal.
Bibliographic Information
- Publisher Coach House Books
- Publication Date May 2019
- Orginal LanguageFrench
- ISBN/Identifier 9781552453872
- Publication Country or regionCanada
- FormatPaperback
- Primary Price 19.95 CAD
- Pages152
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Dimensions8 x 5 inches
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