A haunting countdown to love, loss, and fate.
A tense, deeply moving, Prix Goncourt–winning novel in which one woman retraces the tiny choices that led to the motorcycle accident that killed her partner. Part elegy, part investigation, it asks how life can pivot on a single “what if”.
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Live Fast
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A haunting countdown to love, loss, and fate.
A tense, deeply moving, Prix Goncourt–winning novel in which one woman retraces the tiny choices that led to the motorcycle accident that killed her partner. Part elegy, part investigation, it asks how life can pivot on a single “what if”.
- Book Synopsis
-
Winner of the Prix Goncourt
A powerful autobiographical novel of loss, the incandescent love that remains, and the small decisions that define the course of fate
Paced and structured with the inevitable suspense of a countdown, Brigitte Giraud's tense and haunting novel follows one woman's quest to comprehend the motorcycle accident that took the life of her partner Claude at age 41.
The narrator of Live Fast recounts the chain of events that led up to the fateful accident, tracing the tiny, maddening twists of fate that might have prevented its tragic outcome.
Each chapter asks the rhetorical question, "what if," departing from an image or memory from early years in Algeria during the war, to moving to the suburbs of Lyon, buying and renovating a home where they could "put down their suitcase for a whole life."
A sensitive elegy to her husband and a subtle, precise vision of a lasting love, Live Fast is a moving and electrifying portrait of two people caught up in the mundane activities of life, forgetting that living itself can be dangerous.
Ideal for readers who…
- love literary, autobiographical fiction that examines grief with precision, honesty, and emotional force
- are drawn to “what if” narratives that trace the tiny decisions and chance turns that reshape a life
- want a tense, propulsive structure—like a countdown—paired with an intimate love story
- enjoy books that move between memory, place, and time, from Algeria during the war to life in Lyon
- are looking for an elegiac, beautifully observed novel about how love endures after loss
- About The Author
- Brigitte Giraud is a French writer and novelist and the author of fourteen books. She received the 2022 Prix Goncourt for Live Fast, which was also a big bestseller in France. Live Fast is her first book to be published in English.
- Product Details
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- ISBN
- 9780063346734
- Format
- Paperback
- Publisher
- Ecco, (09 April 2026)
- Number of Pages
- 176
- Weight
- 133.81 grams
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 203 x 135 x 10 mm
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