Julia Deck's novel VIVIANE, translated from the French by Linda Coverdale, is both an engrossing murder mystery and a gripping exploration of madness, a narrative that tests the shifting boundaries of language and the self. For inspiration, Deck read the work of Samuel Beckett, because, as she says, “he positions himself within chaos and gives it coherence.” How can we say that we are who we say we are? What determines our actions, and are we really responsible for them? For Viviane Élisabeth Fauville, these are not abstract questions to be left for philosophers; they will decide whether she will get away with murder.
