Friendship, frustration, infidelity … “These little things that drive us”, a novel that nicely echoes our lives

When three opposing characters help a teenager find her mother, who has disappeared, the result is “These little things that drive us”: a novel with a unique writing by Claire Norton.

At the Buttes-Chaumont, an ordinary day passes peacefully. Except for three people: Nicolas, Aude and Alexandre, who do not know each other… but who will find themselves linked following their meeting with Charlene, a teenager with a sacred character. She is ready to do anything to find her mother, whom she has never known, including to exert a sacred blackmail on Nicolas, Aude and Alexandre. It’s very simple: if these three don’t help her in her quest for truth by putting their own daily life on hold, she will throw herself into the void from the railing where she is perched … An anything but ordinary program , written with great accuracy by Claire Norton and which echoes everyone’s existence.

# 1 A singular … and universal quest

In this new novel by Claire Norton, it is about a succession of unspoken that a young girl wants to shatter to blossom in her future life. Who is his mother, this ghostly shadow? Why did she leave it? And why does she not want to reconnect? His father, himself, remains walled in an unbearable silence … Are the circumstances of this abandonment so dreadful that they must be buried? It is impossible not to be touched by Charlene’s quest for identity, who gradually acts as the revealer of the difficulties of the other characters: throughout the book, they also find themselves confronted with their own secrets, complex relationships with their elders, fear of accepting ourselves… What reminds us that, whatever our experience, we are all still in search of ourselves.

# 2 A search like a thriller

The originality of this book? Its construction. The search for a missing mother quickly turns into a hectic investigation, where the various protagonists lead a real criminal case. Social networks scrutinized, searches carried out despite the prohibitions, the past dissected … The reader finds himself caught up in a removed and almost cinematographic writing. But this gasping machine does not run empty: here, the plot allows the existential problems of modern and complex characters to be settled, to which one becomes attached in no time at all – when one does not clearly identify with them. These little things that drive us has an investigative air, yes, but above all remains an ode to mutual aid, which gradually becomes friendship. And that is all its beauty.

# 3 Claire Norton, sensitive author

As in his previous novels (In your soul and conscience …, In spite of ourselves … the one that I am), Claire Norton manages to draw us into a story as original as it is realistic and moving. Is it her professional activity in human resources, which the novelist combines with her passion for writing, which has enabled her to write so accurately the various links that are forged over the course of the plot? Possible… One thing is certain: Claire Norton dust here the literary codes around the theme of the meeting and it is a real pleasure in a period when, pandemic obliges, each one could feel very isolated. Discover without further delay These little things that drive us.

“These little things that drive us…” by Claire Norton, released on April 1, 2021, by Éditions Pocket.

Celine Peschard

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