In Paris in the 1980s and 1990s, a journalist from Liberation It tells the extraordinary adventures of Willie, Doumé, and Leibowitz. The former is a young provincial of splendid beauty who becomes the king of the Parisian gay nightlife. The Corsican Doumé was Willie's lover and founder of the first French gay liberation movement. Leibo, the narrator's married lover, is a young philosopher who begins on the divine left and culminates his career in a ministry.
Willie contracts AIDS and becomes a media figure bordering on the grotesque, and a savage and unbridled enemy of Doumé.
The best part of men is Tristan Garcia's debut novel, and it attracted a tremendous amount of interest from the press and the public from the moment it was published. With a direct style and an approach that is far removed from the autobiographical genres in vogue, Garcia—who, due to his age, was unable to experience the years he portrays—evokes that era with surprising effectiveness and vividness.
Reviews
"With The best part of menIn his debut novel, Tristan Garcia establishes himself as the literary revelation of the year. His story of the 1980s and 1990s, between the homosexual scene and the new philosophers, is a magnificent moral tale of universal significance. Nelly Kaprièlian.
“Garcia skillfully describes the intellectual restructuring of the past two decades: the last gasp of utopias, the conversion of the left to capitalism, the transformations of activism, the significance of the fractures within the gay community, embodied by the hatred between Dominique and William. With great courage, he seizes upon recent history and offers, beyond the fates of his characters, a true novel of ideas, something very rare in French literature.” Jean Hurin, Le Magazine littéraire.
“In France, writers rarely venture into the realm of contemporary history. Tristan Garcia isn't afraid to offer a political interpretation of the debates sparked by AIDS in the 1990s. He knows how to stimulatingly fictionalize those years we thought were empty, ugly, and useless, and, in a modern way—at once funny, cruel, and pathetic—he paints a portrait of familiar characters who move us almost unwittingly.” François Ozon, Les Inrockuptibles.
“A cruel and dark lucidity. A revelation.” — Christine Rousseau, Le Monde.
“A novel as intense and harsh as contraband alcohol.” — Claude Arnaud, Le Point.
“The birth of a true writer.” — Dominique Fernandez, Le Nouvel Observateur.
About the author
Tristan Garcia (Toulouse, 1981) is a French writer and philosopher. He rose to fame with his first novel, The best part of men, who obtained the Flore Award (2008) and established him as one of the most promising voices of his generation. His work—both fiction and essays—explores themes such as identity, politics, mass culture, and the tensions between desire, fame, and media power. In addition to his literary work, he has developed a sustained intellectual activity in the field of contemporary thought.
