Maïté Coiffure
Book not yet available in English
Summary:
Fourteen-year-old Louis is struggling at school. Like all his classmates, he has to find somewhere to do a week’s work experience. His grandmother suggests a week at a hair salon, to the despair of Louis’s father, a surgeon, who thinks hairdressing is for losers, thickos and homos. But Louis turns out to be an excellent time keeper and conscientious worker. He turns out to love hairdressing and makes friends with all his “colleagues”. Fifi, the smily young hairdresser who is hurting inside, Clara the ditzy young apprentice, Garance the blonde hairstylist being stalked by her ex, and Madame Maïté, the manageress, all plot together to help Louis achieve his dream of becoming a hairdresser in turn. Once the week is over, Louis keeps going back to the salon, and eventually skips class to go every day. But convincing his father won’t be easy…
Edited by: Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
Comment:
A witty novel featuring a bourgeois family split between the father, an authoritarian surgeon, and his quiet, mousy wife. The carefully drawn characters are endearing. The novel offers an original approach to the question of social determinism, describing a teenage boy forging his own path against the wishes of his family, friends, and social milieu. It explores a number of important themes, such as Fifi’s homosexuality, social and physical violence against women in the characters of Clara and Garance, and disability and grief in the character of Maïté. An excellent social comedy in a lively, humorous style. Marie-Aude Murail is a very well known French author who has won many prizes for Maïté Coiffure and her queer YA novel Oh! Boy.