The Invention of Tristan
L'Invention de Tristan
A literary detective novel…
And a magnificent, modern fairytale, in which everything is true…
“Once upon a time, a penniless American writer, whose manuscript has been rejected by every publisher in New York, finds himself living in a tiny attic room in Paris. One Sunday, on the Pont des Arts, he meets a woman and falls in love. What he doesn’t yet realize—as fate would have it—is that she is the daughter of a celebrated French writer.
One day, her father stumbles upon the young man’s manuscript. Intrigued, he shares it with his own editor. The brilliance of the text is undeniable, allaying all doubts. Suddenly, the very publishers who had dismissed it initially are vying to publish it.
A fairy-tale ending? Not quite.”
The Invention of Tristan tells the tale of this literary odyssey—the astonishing true story of Tristan Egolf and Lord of the Barnyard. Narrated through the eyes of Zachary, a New Yorker fact-checker stranded in Paris after a breakup, the novel pieces together the enigmatic life of Egolf—a fiery talent whose journey takes us from the streets of Paris to the depths of the American Midwest, from sudden literary acclaim to his tragic suicide in 2005.
With The Invention of Tristan, Adrien Bosc delves into the genius, torment, and self-destruction of a writer who blazed briefly but brilliantly, leaving behind a legacy as haunting as it is extraordinary.
Reviews
Praise for Adrien Bosc:
“Constellation is the work of a gifted and elegant writer, one who seems to instinctually know how to breathe life into a fictional world.”—Dinaw Mengestu, author of Someone Like Us
“Adrien Bosc’s brilliant novel, Constellation, proclaims resoundingly that a lot of things can be taken from us—daringly constructed, profound, and intellectually poignant, this is a novel from one of France’s best young writers.”—Colum McCann, author of Let the great world spin
“ Constellation is a novel of profound humanity.”—Nathaniel Rich, author of Losing Earth
“Like all great novels, Constellation works in ever expanding circles (…) Any way you choose to read this slim and marvelous work, its pleasures abound.”—Wall Street Journal
“A beautiful book about the best minds of a generation and the devastation of war – an outrageous voyage from the past that speaks eloquently to our present.”—Deborah Levy, author of The Cost of Living
“An intellectually star-studded and dreamy document, Outrageous Horizon leads the reader irresistibly along, and leaves a lingering sense of amazement in its wake”—Geoff Dyer