Patrick Cottrell

A darkly funny and profoundly moving new novel by award-winning author Patrick Cottrell. And who did I think I was, trying to teach the troubled youth how to write?... I would say I was Dan Moran, a Korean adoptee, single, approaching forty, once plain-in-appearance as a woman, now ugly as a man, that's who or what I thought I was. Most importantly, I was no longer useless, I was a writer. Five years after the death of his youngest brother, Dan Moran is now the published trans author of the autofictional novel Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. He is teaching fiction in Brooklyn and working on his next book-a psychological thriller-when a mysterious envelope arrives for him in the mail. Addressed to the wrong name, it includes a childhood photo of his deceased brother. But who would send such a thing, and why? Against his better judgment, Dan returns to his childhood home on the eve of his brother's memorial dinner. His estranged family is surprised to see him, but he ignores them. He drives around in his brother's Honda Accord, believing he is a detective. He searches for a constellation of unidentified women who may have been involved with his brother, all while being mistaken for another man. He hopes his investigation will reveal exactly who he was to his brother, but in a series of unsettling and destabilizing encounters, what he discovers is the irrevocable distance between who we are and how we are perceived. Afternoon Hours of a Hermit is Patrick Cottrell's long-awaited second novel--an existential noir, an absurd comedy, a complex character study, and a heartbreaking inquiry into the paradox of identity, memory, and the very enterprise of writing fiction.

A Novel

Afternoon Hours of a Hermit

Patty Yumi Cottrell

Helen Moran is thirty-two years old, single, childless, college-educated, and partially employed as a guardian of troubled young people in New York. She's accepting a delivery from IKEA in her shared studio apartment when her uncle calls to break the news: Helen's adoptive brother is dead. According to the internet, there are six possible reasons why her brother might have killed himself. But Helen knows better: she knows that six reasons is only shorthand for the abyss. Helen also knows that she alone is qualified to launch a serious investigation into his death, so she purchases a one-way ticket to Milwaukee. There, as she searches her childhood home and attempts to uncover why someone would choose to die, she will face her estranged family, her brother's few friends, and the overzealous grief counselor, Chad Lambo; she may also discover what it truly means to be alive. A bleakly comic tour de force that's by turns poignant, uproariously funny, and viscerally unsettling, this debut novel has shades of Bernhard, Beckett and Bowles--and it announces the singular voice of Patrick Cottrell.

Novel

Helen a 32 ans, elle habite New York. Célibataire sans enfant, elle travaille à temps partiel comme surveillante dans un centre périscolaire pour jeunes en difficulté. Helen a une vie plutôt banale, jusqu’à ce 30 septembre lorsqu’elle réceptionne le canapé IKEA de sa colocataire tout en apprenant, quelques instants après, le suicide de son petit frère. D’origine coréenne comme elle, il a été adopté par une famille installée dans le Milwaukee et est resté au domicile familial alors que sa grande sœur a rompu tout lien avec leurs parents adoptifs il y a plusieurs années déjà. Helen a fui un père pingre et une mère sans courage, ainsi que de rares amis. Mais la nouvelle de la mort de son frère la pousse à quitter provisoirement son emploi et Manhattan afin de retourner dans la maison de son enfance. À son arrivée, ses parents adoptifs, surpris, doivent cohabiter avec cette fille qui ne fait absolument aucun effort pour apaiser les tensions. Helen n’est pas venue pour réconforter son père et sa mère, ni pour les aider à préparer les funérailles, elle veut en réalité enquêter pour tenter de comprendre les causes du suicide de son frère. Interrogatoire de ses amis, inspection de la chambre du défunt, examen des derniers lieux qu’il a fréquentés, Helen se transforme en détective à la recherche d’indices mais aussi de sens. Un détective aussi envahissant qu’agressif, dont l’ironie dévastatrice ne connaît aucune décence. Pardon si je dérange est un livre hilarant et sombre à la fois. Patrick Cottrell, lui-même d’origine coréenne, fait coexister avec beaucoup de naturel la comédie et la tragédie en les imbriquant dans l’esprit loufoque de sa narratrice. Une performance impressionnante pour un premier roman qui a conquis la critique et raflé de nombreux prix à sa sortie. Traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Héloïse Esquié

Patrick Cottrell

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