Solange wants to have sex. Will it be with one of the boys at school? The exchange student? The fireman she meets at the disco when she sneaks out one night? Or with Arnaud, the coolest boy she knows?
She'd like to see more of her father, even though he's so embarrassing. As for her mother, she's too depressed. Something to do with the photo of the dead boy on the mantelpiece. Monsieur Bihotz, her neighbour who lives alone now his mother has died, is supposed to be her babysitter but Solange has other ideas. There's really not much scope in her boring village, Clèves.
But who cares, Solange will get to do it, go all the way, whatever it takes.
All The Way is a brilliant and hilarious picture of an adolescent girl, by the author of Tom is Dead.
About the Author
Marie Darrieussecq is the author Pig Tales, My Phantom Husband, A Brief Stay with the Living, White and Tom Is Dead.
Industry Reviews
'Another astonishing work by Darrieussecq. All the Way is a stunning achievement.' -- M. J. Hyland
'A dreamy and daring narrative.' * Courier Mail and Daily Telegraph *
'Explicit, funny and unsentimental, All the Way captures what it's like to be under-age and out of your mind with desire. Darrieussecq is a sublime writer with real insight.' * Saturday Age and Sydney Morning Herald *
'Darrieussecq is excellent at evoking the ever-shiftin boundaries of the adolescent world. She also poignantly depicts the complexities of parent-child relationships and their often turbulent period during adolescence.' * Weekend Australian *
'[A] sharp, funny and honest description of a girl coming to grips with her blooming sexuality.' * Herald Sun *
'All the Way offers insight into the confusing world of adolescence and sexual awakening and is unsettling in its honesty.' * Launceston Examiner *
'Darrieussecq is not afraid to break social taboos, nor does she flinch from the utter selfishness that accompanies adolescence...sad, funny and challenging.' * Otago Daily Times *
'Darrieussecq dissects with anatomical precision the climate of small-town France in the 1980s, with its strange mix of sexual openness and the continued prevalence of a particularly French brand of chauvinism and racism, all coloured by the disappointment of a generation that came of age in 1968, the promised revolution having faded almost completely, leaving nothing more noble than a petit bourgeois sensibility.' * Times Literary Supplement *