Why did I love this book?
A female friend who has impeccable reading taste told me she was reading Annie Ernaux’s book, Simple Passion, a diary account of Ernaux’s affair with a younger man, and that Ernaux had won the Nobel Prize.
I hadn’t heard of her but was intrigued, and found myself reading several Ernaux books this summer, including The Young Man, being the novella about the same affair with the eponymous young man. This one, though, A Man’s Place, a memoir about outgrowing Ernaux’s lower middle-class background and her relationship with her father, is particularly strong.
The prose is simple, honest, and powerful. It made me cry.
3 authors picked A Man's Place as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
A New York Times Notable Book
Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her practical examination for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection.
Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family…