As if the reader were riding shotgun, this intensely vivid novel captures a life on the lam. "L'astragale" is the French word for the ankle bone Albertine Sarrazin's heroine Anne breaks as she leaps from her jail cell to freedom. As she drags herself down the road, away from the prison walls, she is rescued by Julien, himself a small-time criminal, who keeps her hidden. They fall in love. Fear of capture, memories of her prison cell, claustrophobia in her hideaways: every detail is fiercely felt. Astragal burst onto the French literary scene in 1965; its fiery and vivacious style was entirely new, and Sarrazin became a celebrity overnight. But as fate would have it, Sarrazin herself kept running into trouble with the law, even as she became a star. She died from a botched surgery at the height of her fame. Sarrazin's life and work (her novels are semi-autobiographical) have been the subject of intense fascination in France; a new adaptation of Astragal is currently being filmed. Patti Smith, who brought Astragal to the attention of New Directions, contributes an enthusiastic introduction to one of her favorite writers.
Author
Albertine Sarrazin (17 September 1937 — 10 July 1967) was a French author. She was best known for her semi-autobiographical novel L'Astragale. Born in Algiers, Algeria, she was quickly abandoned and put in the care of the social services, being then christened Albertine Damien in honour of the saint of the day she was found on. She was then adopted by a family that moved her to Aix-en-Provence. Within that dysfunctional family, she was abused by a family member and constantly quarreling with them, which led to an intense distaste for authority that stayed with her the rest of her life. Although she was intelligent and did well in her studies, Albertine's family sent her to a reformatory school in Marseille. She escaped to Paris where she satisfied her thirst for literature and art while she engaged in prostitution. In 1953, a bungled armed hold-up led to her imprisonment within Fresnes Prison. Upon escaping (and breaking her ankle in the process) she met Julien Sarrazin, and the two were soon married. The two continued to live lives of crime, spending time in and out of jail and keeping in contact through letters. In prison, Sarrazin wrote her first novels, L'Astragale and La Cavale, which were published after her release in 1964 (the astragale of the title is the French word for the talus bone, which both she and the main character of her novel broke on their escapes from jail). Astragale was translated in English at that same time. Their success allowed the married couple to settle in Montpellier where she wrote her third story, La Traversière. The novel also performed well, but she died shortly afterwards from complications during kidney surgery; she was only 29 years old. (from Wikipedia)
