Fowl Eulogies
Fowl Eulogies is an absurd fairy tale for the ethical carnivore, fiction of perfect madness, of brutal and unprecedented humor. From the meadow to the supermarket, this dazzling first novel of mischief and feathers, brings to life the singular poetry of the industrial chicken.
Upon her mother's death, Paule Rojas, a vegetarian city-dweller, returns to the chicken farm where she grew up. Pressured to fulfil her mother's last request, Paule rediscovers pleasure and meaning in running the old family business. Yet, eager to bring something of herself to a family tradition, Paule embarks on increasingly intricate ways of helping the chickens to self-actualize before their deaths. She records the chickens' life stories, adding them to the labels that decorate the vacuum-packed meat sent off to market--an individual biography for every chicken. But not all runs smooth in her childhood village; Paule finds she has few friends and many enemies. She is forced to spread her wings, relocate her livestock, and oversee the construction of an urban farm of never-before-seen practices and proportions.
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Lucie Rico is an
author, screenwriter, and director hailing from Perpignan in the South of
France, and currently based in Paris. She worked for several years in
publishing and online media before devoting herself to writing for the page and
the screen. She has directed several series and short films and written feature
films. In addition, she is an associate professor in creative writing at the
University of Clermont Auvergne. Fowl Eulogies, awarded both the Prix du Roman d'Ecologie and
the Prix Littéraire du Cheval Blanc, is her first novel.
DARIA CHERNYSHEVA
Daria Chernysheva translates from Russian and French. She completed her MA in Translation Studies at the University of Warwick on a Fulbright Scholarship, and is currently a doctoral candidate in Creative Critical Writing at University College London. She was a recipient of the 2019 French Voices Award for excellence in translation. Her work has appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Triple Canopy, AzonaL, Comparative Drama, and Tether's End.
Praise for Fowl Eulogies
compelling, and heartbreaking, and--like some great magic trick--utterly
convincing. I've more to say, about the warnings in the story, the soft
horror of homogeny, about how things--endeavour, care, a species--mutate when
taken from their natural place ... but the story itself says it all much
better. It's brilliant." ―CYNAN JONES, author of The Dig
"This story is perfectly wacky, and both brutally and incomparably funny. Fowl Eulogies is a debut novel that keeps getting crazier, reaching its climax in blood and punitive action. Lucie Rico has managed to write a book in which bursts of laughter give way to disquietude and teeth-grinding, like a squawk right before the killing blow." ―Télérama
"This modern tale, a dazzling first novel of malice and feathers, hatches the unique poetry of the industrial chicken, innocent symbol of our anodyne lives, our shrink-wrapped lives--and you will never taste it again without sparing it a sincere thought." ―Elle
"Written in an incisive style of short sentences, as if chopped by a meat cleaver." ―L'indépendant
"This story about marketing advances with precision, without digression, and avoids the traps of anthropomorphism and terror." ―Libération
"A dystopia for farm chickens, Lucie Rico's first novel is initially charming, then haunting, then threatening." ―En attendant Nadeau
"A comedy laid with masterful ease, absurd and delicious." ―Causette
"Without long sentences or big words, Lucie Rico puts some humor and much freshness into this astonishing story, with a natural levity that defuses the cruelty and darkness of the events." ―La semaine du Roussillon
"Fowl Eulogies, Lucie Rico's first novel, is a farce ... of sorts: the author's prose is very neutral and one is continuously shuttled back and forth between the certainty that the story is a fable, and the sense that one is reading about the gradual slide into insanity of a heroine who is becoming increasingly frightening. But who cares about a book's classification when it is so accomplished. Lucie Rico constructs a masterful plot, with twists as unexpected as they are deliberate. This is surely the reason why she manages to carry us along in this comical tale: if there is a slide into a parallel world, it is gradual, near-invisible." ―L'usine nouvelle
"A profound meditation on our supposedly human(e) race, without flattery but with tenderness." ―Esprit
"Never before were chickens so scrupulously observed. It turns out that Lucie Rico is a documentarian, and I guarantee you that this is as applicable to her pen as it is to her eyes." ―Livres agités
