Zizi the Kid
David Abiker
Robert Laffont
April 2010
15 €
Zizi the Kid (sur mon balcon)
Tuesday, July 6, 2010, Paris
One of my Super Meilleurs Potes, who thinks – well – not too badly, said to me one evening “it’s all in your first sentence”. Younes, you can say thank you.
Zizi the Kid nearly cost me my life. All over Paris. On Earth. Not to mention money. Culture is worth taking a few risks. Careful, darling, it’ll cut. For those who know. For the rest of you, you can – again – skip this paragraph without losing too much substance.
Anyway, the book. I finished it two weeks ago. But I like to let it marinate a bit. The author is David Abiker. 15 years older than me. 40 years old. A man of all kinds as we like them. Journalist. TV and radio commentator. Graduate of Sciences Po Paris. Politically committed. In 2000, he became Director of Communications and Training for the Dagris Group, specializing in agricultural cooperation and cotton development. And in 2010, paf, Zizi the Kid.
The title almost makes people smile on the subway. Yes, it’s a bit about sexual willy. And childhood too. It’s about magazines for grown-ups, Stéphanie Poulain and first erections. It’s about dancing to Kool and The Gang. It’s about coloring France in the seventies. It reacts in us too. Oh, yeah, I remember. The childhood adventures of this little boy, through the enchanting pen of a man who is – today – very much an adult, give us a few nostalgic wrinkles.
Very good :
p. 67: “On the poster there’s fire, the warm colors of a fire and this young woman with a gentle gaze, unfolding like a chaise longue. My first naked body as a real girl… I’m no expert, but I can tell she’s not naked for the pool or the bath… Nor does she intend to get into her pyjamas. She’s looking at me from underneath her Santa hat. This princess is here to get naked, and I think that’s her specialty.”
p. 83: “Time passes, a few months, and I’m old enough for Philippe to get used to my presence. Just as I hit Gaëlle, Philippe hits me constantly. Oh, never in front of the family, he chooses his moment, his place: behind a door, between two pieces of furniture, locked in his room. He’s sneaky, which obviously gives our games an extra flavour. The blows don’t matter, because I’m with him.”
p. 180: “Guy always says, as if he’d had a special relationship with drinking than with literature: ‘The bouquiniste is the bistro for people who don’t drink.'”
p. 190: “It’s all rubbish,” he replies. It’s all about jerking off. Are you going to jerk off, or are you going to play marbles?” ”
The last sentence works too.
Elisa Palmer
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
