The Ravaged Night

A Novel

Translated by Frank Wynne

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About The Book

A band of teenage misfits. A town rotting from the inside out. An abandoned house that feeds on their deepest fears and darkest desires. This haunted house tale—in the tradition of Stephen King's coming-of-age horrors—comes from one of France's most celebrated literary stars

In a quiet suburb in the mid-1990s, nothing ever seems to happen. Then a teenage boy dies, and the adults are quick to call it suicide.

His friends aren’t so sure.

Drawn together by grief, boredom, and a creeping sense that something is terribly wrong, a group of teens begins to fixate on an abandoned house at the end of a cul-de-sac—a place everyone avoids, although no one can explain why. Once the gang crosses its threshold, they find that, somehow, the house seems to know them—showing them what they long for most, feeding on their fears, their shame, their secret rage.

As the line between nightmare and waking life erodes, the group is forced to confront not only the house’s sinister power, but the violence, cruelty, and despair festering inside their families and their town. What begins as a dare becomes an obsession—and then a reckoning.

The Ravaged Night is a coming-of-age horror novel from one of France’s most brilliant novelists about friendship, desire, and the terrible cost of growing up. An exhilarating celebration of Stephen King and the cult slasher film, this is a story about the places that shape us—and the ones that devour us.

About The Author

© SG

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo was born in 1981. He is the author of Pornographia, Le sel, and Une éducation libertine, which won the Goncourt First Novel Prize. Animalia, his fourth novel, won the Prix du Livre Inter 2017 and the 2020 Republic of Consciousness Prize, and was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt, Prix Femina, Prix Médicis and Prix Wepler. The Son of Man won the Prix du Roman Fnac. The Ravaged Night won the Prix du livre de l'année du Magazine Lire. 

Product Details

  • Publisher: Scribner (March 23, 2027)
  • Length: 368 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781668239223

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Raves and Reviews

"The Ravaged Night awakens our most secret desires, our brightest longings, before soberly tipping over into horror. Terror opens the soul to other horizons. A sublime homage from Del Amo to Stephen King, the master of the genre." —Elle Magazine

"Perhaps one of the best novels of the year." —Vanity Fair

"Stunning…Del Amo’s talent is to take a banal story of a haunted house and turn it into a psychological chamber play…a masterpiece of the genre. It confirms our conviction that we are reading a great writer, even though this is only his sixth novel. We are already waiting for his next book." —Le Figaro

"Since his first book, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo has continued to explore new territories and genres. He unites these worlds in a virtuoso style and phrases intertwine and unfold with a frank sensuality. In The Ravaged Night, there is something delightful about his celebration of the imaginary" —Le Monde

"A writer with the soul of a sociologist, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo retraces the journey of each of his characters within their family and neighborhood, as well as through the course of their era…astonishing." —Le Parisien
 

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