August 1992. A valley lost somewhere in the East of France, blast furnaces that no longer burn, a lake, a hot afternoon. Anthony is 14 years old, and with his cousin, they are bored out of their minds. That's when they decide to steal a canoe to go and see what's happening on the other side, on the famous nudist beach. At the end, it will be for Anthony the first love, the first summer, the one that decides all the rest. It will be the drama of life that begins.

With Leurs enfants après eux, that won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2018 ans was the best seller book of this year, Nicolas Mathieu writes the novel of a valley, of an era, of adolescence, the political story of a youth who must find his way in a dying world. Four summers, four moments, from Smells Like Teen Spirit to the 1998 World Cup, to tell the story of lives at full speed in this France of the in-between times, of medium-sized towns and suburban areas, of the countryside and concrete urban development zones. The France of Picon and Johnny Halliday, of funfairs and Intervilles, of men worn out by work and lovers faded at twenty. A country far from the counters of globalization, caught between nostalgia and decline, decency and rage.

We read this book in the summer of 2022.