Camille Bordas is the author of two previous books in her native French. How to Behave in a Crowd is her first novel written in English. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, her nonfiction in Chicago magazine. She teaches creative writing at the University of Florida MFA program in Gainesville.
“How to Behave in a Crowd joins the league of novels about
adolescence persuasively told by adolescent narrators. ‘Who would
care for a novel about us?’ asks one of Dory’s siblings. The answer
is: everyone.” —The New York Times Book Review
"Smart, charming . . . . Izzy is a wonderful narrator, keenly
observant, but also inherently caring and inadvertently astute,
ironic, touching, or flat-out hilarious." —Heller
McAlpin, NPR
“A sharp, sweet, and wry coming of age story. . . . About
pretentious people but never pretentious, the story unfolds with
humor and compassion.” —Kathleen Rooney, Chicago Tribune
"A deeply satisfying work of literary fiction.” —Booklist
(starred review)
"Intriguing. . . . in its humor and sadness, beauty and bluntness,
youthful perspective and mature insight.” —Publishers
Weekly
"An utterly charming book—moving, witty, funny, and especially
wonderful for the mature kind-heartedness of its view of humanity.
Camille Bordas is an invaluable new voice." —George
Saunders
"In How to Behave in a Crowd, six brilliant French siblings,
reeling in the wake of their father's death, ask themselves a
question, straight from Montaigne: 'How should we live?' To answer
it they write novels, complete multiple PhDs, analyze almost
everything, joke about everything else. Even if Salinger's Glass
family moved to rural France I doubt they would conjure a tale this
funny, humane and slyly philosophical. Camille Bordas' first novel
in English is charm itself!" —Zadie Smith
"A tender, smart, and very funny novel. Isidore and his world are
wonderfully particular and eccentric, but we will all recognize the
painful-yet-thrilling experience of being on the cusp of adulthood.
Bordas perfectly captures the special beauty of an adolescent: a
brain as smart as any adult but with a heart uncorrupted by
experience." —Dana Spiotta
"Camille Bordas will enchant her readers with this brilliantly dark
story of an eccentric family negotiating with loss. She is J.D.
Salinger as a French woman—what more could you
want?" —Catherine Lacey
"Camille Bordas is completely brilliant. Soon she will lay waste to
the sad landscape of American letters." —Jesse Ball
"At once tender and heartbreaking, yet also sharp and
funny, How to Behave in A Crowd is a brilliantly rendered
and utterly charming story about the idiosyncrasies and
struggles of coming of age. This smart, gripping, witty novel is an
absolute must-read." —Yasmine El Rashidi
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