An Impossible Love

"The most recently translated autofiction by controversial French literary phenomenon Angot brings her unflinching intelligence to a terrible childhood trauma . . . Described without overstatement or sensationalism, raw and honest, [Rachel and Christine's] experience rings brutally true . . . Disturbing, powerful, a deeply personal story that is also searingly political."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"I was enthralled by An Impossible Love from the first page to the last.  Christine Angot brilliantly traces the minute fluctuations of emotion in her trio of characters, as well as the evasions, omissions and deceptions implicit in every kind of love.  A daring and impressive performance."--Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Praise for Incest


"A formally daring and passionate performance of the depths of human self-loathing, and the sufferings of attachment. It cut deep inside me with its truths. In every moment of reading it, I both wanted to keep reading it and wanted to write. I don't think I will ever forget this book." -- Sheila Heti  

"A maximalist in the art of emotion, Angot unmasks with frightening precision the roiling heart and the sharp edges of lust, loathing, and scorn lodged within love's fossil record. This is a book that points you toward the subterranean roots of your own emotions, the intricacies and murk we cover up in the name of normal daily operations." -- Alexandra Kleeman

"At times reminiscent of playwright Sarah Kane, particularly in her incantatory free associations . . . Incest is remarkably prescient. Christine Angot pinpoints how technology antagonizes mental health; how a lack of immediate reply can give the obsessive mind no room to breath." -- Rebecca Watson, The Times Literary Supplement

"A sensation in France, [Incest is a] novel in the form of a wild confession of a life filled with trauma." -- The New York Times

"Given Angot's antagonism toward conventional syntax, the English translation, by Tess Lewis, is a feat of perspicuity... When "L'Inceste" was first published, an interviewer asked Angot what she hoped to achieve. "My ambition is to be unmanageable," she said. "That people swallow me and at the same time cannot digest me." -- H. C. Wilentz, The New Yorker

"Angot's writing reclaims the confession as a radical act--spiritual, even... At its core, Incest is a true testament to the subversive power of literature, in that it transmutes the violation of incest into connection with the reader." -- Elizabeth Baird, The Millions

"Christine Angot, who despises proper sentiment, has a fascinating, exhilarating, dazzling sensitivity." -- Yann Moix, Le Figaro littéraire