Eddy

Eddy is the first person narrator of the novel. Eddy grows up in a French village with his mother, Monique, and his father. When Eddy is still young, his mother gets pregnant with twins. Their birth causes the family financial distress that Eddy cannot understand as a child. Eddy also has an older brother and sister, who remain unnamed throughout the novel and live at the margins of the narrative.

Over the course of Eddy’s upbringing, he struggles to feel a sense of belonging. He is constantly teased and mocked at school. Because he is homosexual, his classmates ridicule and bully him. When his brother discovers what others are saying about Eddy, he teases Eddy, too. Eddy is most hurt by his brother’s unkindness when he tells him “Everyone says you’re a faggot” in front of their mother (5). In order to get back at his...