• 2 Seas Represents: Dutch, English (USA & Canada) and Nordic Countries rights.

LITERARY FICTION

“Nothing can mar my happiness now. I’m invincible – not even cocaine scares me. My friend draws two lines of drugs with her driver’s licence, and I stand up to watch her more closely. She rolls up a 20-Euro note, grips it like a straw and inhales a line through one of her nostrils. I take the banknote and copy her exactly, inhaling the second line. I stare at Carine. She is great, this girl, she’s the kind of person you can depend on, who’ll push you higher. She’s golden.”

What if the average Jane could make her wildest dreams come true using drugs? Johann Zarca and Romain Ternaux have written a genre-defying bildungsroman.

Anne, 31, single, has a dreary life. She is bored, she has no friends, has never been in love, and has never understood the big deal about family. She dislikes her job teaching French in a run-down middle school, has little respect for her colleagues, hates her students, and can’t manage to write that novel she’s been dreaming of publishing. Then one day, Anna discovers drugs, and life soars to colorful heights: with each new substance, the young woman blossoms, grows and regains her humanity. Alcohol dissipates social pressures, ecstasy sharpens her empathy, cocaine stokes her work stamina, LSD improves her creativity. This girl tries it all. An irresponsible and amoral book, with a happy ending.

Johann Zarca is the author of several novels, including Panam Underground for which he was awarded the Prix de Flore in 2018.

Success Story Romain Ternaux‘s fourth book.