I freed myself from your father I thought this would be a new life for me and now it's
starting all over everything's starting all over again. The blazing new book from
once-in-a-generation writer Édouard Louis as he helps his mother escape from an abusive
partner SELECTED AS A BOOK TO READ FOR 2026 BY THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND NEW STATESMAN One
evening during a writers' residency in Athens Édouard receives a tearful phone call from his
mother Monique. She tells him that the man she lives with in Paris is abusive inflicting upon
her the same drunken behaviour as Édouard's father repeating the same cycles of violence
shame and humiliation she fled from before. Step by step they plan her escape celebrating
each small victory of Monique's new beginning. But how do you rebuild your life when you've
never truly known freedom? Monique Escapes is an intimate and gripping portrait of a mother
fighting for her self-determination and of the son who becomes her ally. It is a story of
reinvention the price of liberty and the remaking of the relationship between a mother and a
son who despite the weight of their shared history manage to find each other again.
Translated by John Lambert 'One of the most important politically vital and morally bracing
writers of his generation' GUARDIAN 'I feel so lucky to be living and writing at the same
time as Édouard Louis' MAGGIE NELSON 'One of the major writers of our time' GARTH GREENWELL
