Lila Says: A Novel [Hardcover]

none) Chimo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 1999

In a Parisian ghetto, Lila, a sixteen-year-old Catholic girl, stops to talk to Chimo, a nineteen-year-old Arab boy, and puts into motion a sequence of events that is shockingly raw, sensual, and devastating. Lila's angelic demeanor barely contains the vitality and powerful eroticism that are destined to destroy her. No matter how hard he tries, Chimo is unable to resist the pull of this tragic girl.

Lila Says is Chimo's journal of his encounters with Lila. Each time they meet, she tells him increasingly troubling tales of her supposed exploits and violations, inspiring in the uneducated Chimo a previously untapped poetry. With grace and a streetwise wit, he records her story. His narrative builds relentlessly, breathlessly, until it becomes clear that Lila is perilously close to the edge, where the brutality of the world they inhabit threatens to consume her.

Lila Says, a touching, wrenching tale of innocent love sprung from wanton degradation, convinces us that even in the bleakest, most bitter settings, beauty and romance are possible.

The most sensational foreign novel in recent memory, Lila Says became an instant bestseller in France. In the tradition of Marguerite Duras's The Lover and Pauline Reage's Story of O, Lila Says is a magnificent debut.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The tragedy of chronic unemployment and hopelessness among North African youth in contemporary France explodes in this anonymous first novel that has garnered front-page attention in Europe. Purportedly, the author?"Chimo," the 19-year-old narrator of the doomed blue-collar love story?wrote this account in two school notebooks delivered to the publisher by a lawyer. In a note, the publisher confesses that opinion in the house was divided between those who thought the author was a poorly educated but talented young person or an experienced writer perpetrating a hoax. Fatherless, poor and, like most of his friends in the Old Oak Housing Project near Paris, without a job or prospects, Chimo finds that writing about Lila, a 16-year-old girl who befriends him, transports him from the bleakness of his life. Chimo is an unremarkable, shy and sensitive boy; Lila's angelic looks are in stunning contrast to the precocious fantasies about sex that she shares with him. An enigma in the projects because of her blonde hair, blue eyes, Christian faith and elusiveness, as well as the crazy, devil-fearing aunt with whom she lives, Lila confides only in Chimo. Is she a hustler working for rich men in the city or just a confused kid whose fantasies serve as her own method of escape, much as Chimo's secret nocturnal writing acts as his? Prurience aside?and there is plenty of it?Chimo's simple narrative aches with the writer's yearning for self-expression, and frustration at being "excluded" from the language: "You always feel you're sailing right by a green island you can't get close to... an island stuffed with wonderful fruits, words that people pick for themselves and feast on... but not you, never you." Revelation or hoax, its melodramatic ending a shocking surprise, the work of this writer resonates powerfully. (Jan.) FYI: His identity still unknown, Chimo has published a second novel in France.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This was a best seller in France, but will it go over here? Since it's described as a "raw, voyeuristic tale of sexual discovery in a Parisian ghetto," it might well have a chance. The identity of the author, who wrote pseudonymously, sparked some lively conversations in France.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (January 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684836033
• ISBN-13: 978-0684836034
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,278,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars unbelievable!, January 24, 2000

By 

"theaterfiend" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lila Says: A Novel (Hardcover)

In my opinion, there is nothing more powereful than a book that makes you want to reach inside and touch the characters. Throughout this book, I wanted to do just that. The stream-of-conciousness style pulled me into Chimo's mind and wouldn't let me out; I saw the ghettos as he saw them, and I saw Lila as he saw her. I understood what he understood because his language made me feel it, and it devistated me. It's very seldom that I read a book and have to take a few moments after finishing it to gather up the pieces and put myself back together. Jane Eyre, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure are just a few of these works; and the fact that the slim little volume "Lila Says" can do just as much to me as those classics speaks volumes.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Poor Shall not Inherit the Earth, October 20, 1999

By 

lvkleydorff - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lila Says: A Novel (Hardcover)

If you had ten stars for your ratings, I would give this book twelve of them. The Algerian slums outside of Paris. A 19-year old boy who knows that he has no future. Yet he steals paper and pencil to write stories, dreaming to become a celebrated writer. A 16-year old girl who dreams of perfect love. She knows she will never achieve it. So she talks dirty to force it. An incredibly powerful story of two people condemned to live all their life in abject poverty, knowing this - and still hoping, trying to force destiny. A very sad book, and very disturbing.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ooh lah lah, October 16, 2000

By 

M. H. Bayliss "book queen" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lila Says: A Novel (Hardcover)

Even without the publishing mystery that stands in the background of this books's publication, it would still be an excellent book. It seems too facile to follow the Times lead and write it off as morally abject or high brow pornography. Sure, the book has sex right in the forefront, but it also holds poverty, despair and life in the projects right in your face. The fact that Chimo struggles after each incident to stay up by candlelight and try to capture in his diary what Lila says, shows that there is some salvation. The material can be a bit shocking. You'll never think of riding a bike the same way again! The first thing we hear Lila say to the narrator is, "Do you want to see my pussy." If you're troubled, read no further. But, if you want to see beneath the outer layer of life in the projects in France, you'll want to keep reading.

I don't want to give away the plot, but the scene in which Lila describes the devil to her pious aunt will have you alternating between laughing and crying, and the ending is well-suited to the novel.

I don't know if I believe the story behind the book's publication, but whoever Chimo is, he/she has a powerful literary voice and a unique style.