Starred Review
The Living by Pascale Kramer
translated from the French by Tamsin Black

“Swiss novelist Kramer’s first work to be translated into English is the Prix Lipp-winning, brutally forthright take on a family unraveling after the accidental death of two young siblings. . . . Kramer’s sensuous, close observation casts a hypnotic spell on the narrative, leaving the reader unable to put it down until the last word.”—Publishers Weekly

“Pascale Kramer’s riveting page-turner, The Living (translated by Tamsin Black) reveals the ways that lives can change in a matter of seconds.”—Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly

“Swiss author Pascale Kramer’s novel The Living, the first of her seven novels to be translated into English, is a page-turner from beginning to end. Riveting and meticulous, The Living (translated by Tamsin Black) is the compressed tale of a family struck by tragedy told in prose as austere, precise and unrelenting as a fine Swiss watch.”—Penny Allen, The Oregonian

“The Living [is] an almost perfect example of the depth a ‘small’ novel can encompass. . . . [It is] translated with great acuity by Tamsin Black. . . . The physical specificity and ‘smallness’ of The Living actually makes it, in many senses, a very large novel.”—Britt Peterson, Washington City Paper