New under the sun

Writer in his forties in the midst of an existential crisis, Patrick Hamlin leaves the East Coast of the United States to go to Los Angeles. While he is supposed to oversee the screen adaptation of his novel, he finds himself tasked by the production with monitoring Cassidy Carter, the film's leading role and young starlet, whose whimsical behavior threatens to derail the project. Between the whims of this one and the phone calls of his wife - who devotes herself to treating his eco-anxiety and that of their daughter Nora -, the Hollywood adventure of Patrick Hamlin takes a strange turn. The film that turns seems far removed from its novel, while California is ravaged by fires and a historic drought. Drinking water has also disappeared and is replaced by a synthetic drink, called "WAT-R", which has mysterious effects on its consumers... New under the sun is the novel of our time – a daring exploration of environmental catastrophe in the age of alternative facts, and “a ghost story, not of the past, but of the near future” (The New York Times). Translated from English (United States) by Christian Garcin "At the crossroads of thriller, Californian noir novel and dystopia, Alexandra Kleeman skillfully reconciles reading for pleasure and a keen sense of the ongoing ecological disaster. » The New Yorker