In the opening scene of Édouard Louis’ autobiographical novel, The End of Eddy, its ten year-old protagonist is being spat at and assaulted by two other boys in a school corridor. It’s a difficult scene to read, and life for Eddy doesn’t get any easier as the book progresses.
Set in a poverty stricken Northern French village, it tells the story of Eddy, who identified as a “faggot” from an early age is lowest of a pecking order in a racist, macho environment that’s contained and inflamed by economic conditions. Along with loathing himself, he lives in inescapable terror.