Nothing is Lost By Cloé Mehdi

Nothing is Lost

By Cloé Mehdi

Translated by Howard Curtis

In Les Verrières, a disadvantaged area in a small French town, a cop kills fifteen-year old Saïd during a routine identity check, bashing his skull in with a baton.  The policeman is taken to Court, and acquitted, leading to street protests and further violence before, inevitably, the outrage dies down. Fifteen years later, the incident is nearly forgotten except by the people closest to the tragedy.  This includes Saïd’s family, of course, but also that of the narrator and protagonist of the novel, the precocious eleven-year old Mattia.  Mattia’s father, a teacher and community helper, knew Saïd and many others who, like him, found themselves victims of the police and the legal system.  He was deeply affected by the event, eventually committing suicide in a mental hospital.  It was there that he come to know Zéphyr, known as Zé, who despite his relatively young age, is now Mattia’s legal guardian. 

But now Saïd’s story is resurfacing.  In the area where he used to live, which is now making way for new development, graffiti commemorating him is sprayed every night. Mattia’s sister Gina returns from her nomadic travels. Mysterious figures are tailing Mattia, Zé and Zé’s girlfriend Gabrielle. The police are on alert.  Something is up and getting ever closer to Mattia and those he loves.  And it seems no one is ready to tell Mattia the truth – which he is desperate to discover by himself if necessary.

Nothing is Lost, translated from the French by Howard Curtis, is an incendiary, politically charged novel, a cry of rage against systemic racism, police violence, gentrification, conformism. It wears its radical politics on its sleeve.  Cops are all corrupt, institutions – be they the courts, schools, social services or even hospitals and mental asyla – are there to oppress the weak and maintain the status quo. By the end of the book, this grim view becomes ever more nihilistic. Even the perpetrators who draw the author’s ire are, ultimately, shown to be a different sort of victim, tainted by the system they serve, “a cog in the machine”.  And when the structure is unsalvageable, there is only one solution – burn it all down…

This might seem heavy fare – and it is.  But Mehdi also crafts out of this hard-hitting story an exciting urban thriller, an edgy noir with memorably eccentric characters and an occasional wacky sense of humour.  Cloé Mehdi is an original voice which rings out loud and clear.  

Expected publication

February 28, 2023 by Europa Editions