The Orpheus myth revisited by Laurent Gaudé

In the 80s, a 6 year old, was killed by a stray bullet in a street of Naples. The child's mother asks her husband, Matteo, to avenge the death of his son. It promises to take steps, found the author of the shot but can not bring himself to kill him. Unable to bear the cowardice of her husband Giuliana leaves and chooses oblivion. Desperate, Matteo wanders the night in the Neapolitan slums. One night he meets a transvestite, a disgraced priest and a doctor who will tell him how to access the underworld. Matteo decides to go there to look for his son.

Twenty years later, a man laccomplissement narrates his revenge. On behalf of his father ...

Laurent Gaudé addresses many themes: love, death, revenge and redemption. It takes the classic myth of Orpheus, with multiple modifications, he stages a contemporary Naples. The style is mastered. The neighborhoods, the pariahs, offer a perfect texture to this fantastic atmosphere.