“Call me Sorb, short for Sorbonne. The guys in the gang gave me that nickname because they think I’m more educated than them. They’re not really thugs, just a gang. Guys from Meudon-la-Forêt, that’s all. We hang out, cause trouble, steal a few things, nothing serious.” Yet, one day, a woman dies because of one of them. An accident, he says, and the others have to cover for him when the police arrive. In this France of 1962, where youth is bored in dormitory suburbs, it’s the beginning of a downward spiral for them. Sorb knows that the gang members will end up badly and that maybe he could get out of it. But how?
In this autobiographically tinged coming-of-age novel, Ian Manook tells us about a youth wandering from the bars of the suburbs to the chic streets of Paris, and the fate of a young guy with dreams too big for his HLM (low-income housing).
