The Age of Reinvention

Starred review from October 19, 2015
French author Tuil makes her U.S. debut with this suspenseful, if at times daunting, Gatsby-esque odyssey (a finalist for France’s Prix Goncourt) laced with provocative observations of prejudice, politics, and sexism. Sam Tahar, a $1,000-an-hour Manhattan DA, media darling, and sex addict, enjoys the kind of life he could barely have imagined back when he was growing up in Paris as Samir, the poor son of Tunisian immigrants. But the lofty social position as the son-in-law of Rahm Berg, “one of the richest men in the U.S.,” comes with a high price: Sam’s pretense that he is a North African Jew, not a Muslim. Deep down Sam knows that the question is not if his past will catch up to him but when. Sam’s secret lights the fuse on the twisty plot, but where it eventually explodes comes as a complete shock. Sadly, Tuil’s theme of anti-Muslim prejudice and its consequences seems even timelier today than when the novel was first published in France in 2013. Agent: Heidi Warneke, Grasset & Fasquelle (France).