A review by stanley_nolan_blog
And Their Children After Them by Nicolas Mathieu

4.0

An interesting coming-of-age book I read to prep a review for its adaptation's Venice film festival premiere. This Prix Goncourt winner does a great job at depicting the relationship between the lower-middle class and hard-core poor, as Mathieu calls it, and how race works in that mix. Two great theses working: post-industrial ruin pits disparate groups against one-another (the book and film both came soon after testy French presidential elections); and no matter how hard you try, and how much you don't want it to happen, you'll probably end up like mom and/or dad without achieving the Dream.