Franck Van Penitas

Nicolas MALESKI

If his wife hadnt started cheating on him, Franck wouldnt have let the unforeseen into his ideal and shipshape life.

Franck Van Penitas has followed his wife, Gisèle, to a remote village in the countryside. When she is working 70 hours a week as a vet he is dusting, doing the grocery shopping, and overseeing homework. He wanted to be a writer, he is now a full-time stay-at-home dad. Yes, his life has certainly not turned out as planned but Franck can boast about leading a life true to his nature: ritualized, predictable and solitary.
Obsessed with his garden, he eliminates any adventurous rodent that could spoil it and addictively follows the weather forecast. And then he can spend quality time with his 3 daughters without having to mix with strangers. His only social life being limited to boring get-together with his wifes colleagues or fantastic bike rides and lively discussions with some alcoholic locals as cynic, antisocial and reserved as him (as he will soon find out at his expense).
His quiet life is turned upside down the morning he receives an anonymous letter alluding to his wifes infidelity. Franck Van Penitas being Franck Van Penitas, his reaction and his début as an unfaithful husband will be both mad and funny.

- A sense of Ingmar Bergmans Scenes from a Marriage against the backdrop of a Chabrolian landscape.
- Implacable style for this literary debut filled with humour and wit that is also an unusual marital noir novel.
- The character Franck Van Penitas is bound to become cult. He lives his life as he wants it to be : at a slow pace, in order to be able to look at the world and people around him and focus on the basis (his family, the ground).

Sous le compost is Nicolas Maleskis debut novel.

"One of the most lively novels in a long time." Le Parisien

"In this blunt and mocking novel, Nicolas Maleski dissects the inner-working of a couple and the paradoxes of living in
society" Transfuge