Jérémie Guez’s Eyes Full of Empty, which came out in November from Unnamed Press, continues to rake in the good reviews:
- At The Missing Slate, Casey Harding calls it “impossible to stop reading,” and singles out its “beautiful, terrifying humanity” for praise. She concludes:
Guez, helped by the artful translation by Gauvin, crafted an entirely believable world populated by characters that you alternate between loving and hating. And that, for me, is as close to real life as you can get.
- Bookseller Chris Phipps at Oakland’s Diesel Books shortlisted it at Lithub as one of his 2015 year’s best, along with books by Georgi Gospodinov, Yoss, Boris and Arkady Strutgatsky, and Valeria Luiselli. What awesome company!
- Publisher’s Weekly says the book has “a wicked grace that will appeal to American noir fans,” and Dan Forrest of Library Journal agrees, going one further:
“Fans of the genre who are looking for a protagonist they haven’t seen before in a location with plenty of history and skulduggery will enjoy this quick-paced and suspenseful story.”
- For readers interested in learning more about Guez’s “unusual protagonist” Idir, Nadia Ghanem at Your Middle East sets Guez’s book into a history that straddles the Mediterranean: authors French and North African alike who each looked to each other’s countries for inspiration when it came to crime and noir. She outlines a rich history often overlooked and untranslated. Readers of French looking for something similar can turn to Machaho Tellem Chaho‘s review in Al Huffington Post (for Maghreb-Algeria).
- At Crime Fiction Lover, fan Marina Sofia says that she’s been reading Guez “for a while now [in French] and was hoping his books would appear English […]Â this book effortlessly mixes noir tropes with contemporary references, sarcastic retorts with heartfelt moments. She also interviews the author.
- For a slightly longer interview, check out Layton Green’s at The Big Thrill.
- And finally, if you missed the author’s live event in November at LA’s Skylight Books, where James Ellroy called the author his illegitimate son (with Delphine Seyrig) and said “Camus, thumbs down! Jérémie Guez: arriba, arriba!” look no further: the LA Review of Books has got you covered with video.