Disturbance

A terrorist atrocity reshapes a victim's life in this biting memoir. Journalist and novelist Lançon (L'Élan) was wounded in the 2015 attack by two al Qaeda followers that killed 11 of his colleagues at the Paris satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo; one bullet caused a disfiguring jaw injury. The book is anchored by his stark account of the massacre--"My eye turned to the head and saw, through his hair, the brain tissue of this man, this colleague, this friend"--but mostly concerns his medical struggle through many months and surgeries to repair his maimed face. In Rendall's excellent translation, Lançon's convalescence is an agonizing comedy of pain and humiliation--his uncontrollable salivation keeps causing his bandages to droop off--that's fascinated with healing; the tubes and implants invading his body become characters in their own right, along with the long-suffering nurses, the silent policemen guarding his hospital room, and his brusquely humane lead surgeon. Woven throughout are Proustian reveries that mark the divide between past and present: "I'd acquired the habit of devouring cookies in the family kitchen, when my parents were away, walking barefoot on the cold tile floor." Clear-eyed, endlessly curious, and never sentimental, Lançon's engrossing saga shows how a writer's rich powers of observation and reflection bridge a chasm of tragedy. (Nov.)

In 2015, two militant Islamist brothers attacked the offices of the Paris satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and killed 11 of Lançon's colleagues. Lançon, himself injured during the attack, spends a good portion of the book describing his difficult physical and emotional recovery after the surgeries needed to repair his fractured face. (Surgeons removed his fibula to help reconstruct his features.) Lançon became close to his surgeon, the nurses who are for him, and even the policemen who watched over him in the hospital. The book is an intimate portrait of Lançon's struggle to maintain normalcy after the attack. While his body heals, he admits finding himself afraid to be near Arabs on public transport. He also discusses his intimate love of literature, and shares how some of his favorite works helped him learn to live and trust again. VERDICT Readers will learn details about the Charlie Hebdo attack that only Lançon can provide, and will empathize with Lançon's slow, pained road to recovery while he summons the strength to share his most intimate fears with the world. Highly recommended for all audiences.--Jason L. Steagall, Arapahoe Libs., Colorado

A survivor of the 2015 massacre in Paris recalls the brutality of the attack and narrates the seemingly endless series of his consequent surgeries and other treatments. Lanon, who worked (and still works) as a cultural critic for Charlie Hebdo, the satirical weekly, was severely wounded during the attackshot in the face and left for dead on an office floor that, as he relates, was soaked in blood. Throughout the narrative, the author remains surprisingly calm, describing in an intelligent and deeply informed voice the assault and its grim aftermath. His account is also full of memories of Charlie Hebdo before the assault, of the author's family and other emotional relationships, and of quotidian habits that became more precious as he could no longer control his life. For months, Lanon was hospitalized, endured countless surgeries to repair his faceone involved the removal of his fibula so surgeons could reconstruct his jawbone. He formed a close relationship with his principal surgeon and spent more months under armed surveillance by police bodyguards. But he was also a celebrity and even had a visit from the French president. Slowly, he began to reemerge into everyday life, and he commenced physical therapy, traveled, and moved back into his apartment. Although calm prevails in the text, Lanon also evinces many worriesincluding, near the end, mild anxiety about standing near Arabs on a public bus. Evident throughout is the author's considerable literary knowledge. He read relentlessly in the hospital, and names of significant literary figures populate the narrative: Shakespeare, Proust, Hemingway, Orwell, Henry Miller, Koestler, Edith Wharton. "My new bookshelves gave a second life to the thousands of books that twenty years of shambles had devoured and whose existence had been forgotten," writes Lanon. "They reappeared like old friendswithout alarming me. They were silent, patient. What I had experienced could only nourish the lives they offered me."A frank, relentless, gripping memoir that illustrates both man's inhumanity to man and how quiet resolution can reclaim and restore. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.