Book cover of In Our Strange Gardens

Book description

In Our Strange Gardens was named a BookSense 76 Recommended Pick for January 2002!

Michel has a story to tell. It's about his father, an exquisitely common man whose very ordinariness is a source of grave embarrassment for the boy. It's also the story told to him by his uncle,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked In Our Strange Gardens as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A clown shows up at the trial of Maurice Papon for crimes against humanity. What is he doing there? Written half a century after WWII, In Our Strange Gardens invites its readers to go beyond a black-and-white tinted version of the German Occupation of France. Heroes are not heroic, and the enemy is not always a villain. The story of a man who was embarrassed by his clowning father as kid before learning about his past during the war, In Our Strange Gardens is also a lesson of the power of derision in the face of tragedy. 

From Christophe's list on the French Resistance.

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