(#gifted @worldedbooks) Real Life is described as being about 'surviving the wilderness of family life', and with that I would have to wholeheartedly concur. This is a difficult novel to read and stomach, touching on many issues including domestic and animal abuse, but Dieudonné has penned an important book about families in crisis.
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Spanning five years in just 230 pages, Real Life is narrated by a young girl who ages from 11 to 15 during the course of the novel, living with her little brother, mother, and dangerous big-game hunting father. At ages 11 and 6, the young girl and her brother witness a tragic accident outside the home that sends their lives spiralling in different directions, and exacerbates tensions within the home. The girl becomes convinced she's living the 'wrong' life, which can later be rectified via time travel and quantum physics (it sounds a bit out there but it's handled well), while the little brother, driven inwards by the horror he witnessed, grows ever more sadistic.
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In a book filled with morally dubious characters, the father stands out as the most odious. He has beaten his wife into an 'amoeba' state, as the girl puts it. The book is streaked through with episodes of shocking violence, made all the more affecting because of the frankness which with they're recounted. Throughout all that, the young girl is trying to grapple with coming of age, furthering her passion for physics, and trying to curb the monster she believes has possessed her brother. The tension builds perfectly all the way through, and I never felt like the pacing was off despite making great big time jumps.
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Roland Glasser has done an excellent job of translating the prose from the French (Dieudonné is a Belgian author), and the fierce, graphic imagery is as effective and startling in English as I imagine it was in the French that led the author to winning many prestigious literary prizes.
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If you're particularly sensitive to scenes of abuse then I probably wouldn't recommend this one, but if you can stomach it then you surely won't forget this one in a hurry.