Serge Lecomte

The Casanova of Binche Serge Lecomte

It's the spring of 1940 and Arthur Comte is headed home. He is nineteen and in full rebellion against the life he was raised to live, one in which men labor in the mines until they sweat coal dust. He plunges back into Binche in all its complexity-his family life with his mother, father, and siblings; the various women he has been involved with and who still love him; his ongoing fight with Lumière, the village priest and an anti-Semite; his uncle and godfather Oscar who has more than a touch of the supernatural about him. What follows is a wild ride of a novel, rich with detail about life in Nazi-occupied Belgium yet filled with imaginative flights that take the reader into a dreamscape, a place where food is scarce, life is harsh, resistance fighters are hung, but which also has the coherence and logic of a fairy tale. Evading death at every turn, Arthur is tutored in the meaning of life. Filled with incident both dire and zany, populated by characters of unusual depth, complexity, and pathos, THE CASANOVA OF BINCHE has at its heart the great character of Arthur-fully alive, constantly on the move, always curious, a dreamer, a lover, a devil and a saint.