A Sun for the Dying

The final novel from the author of the Marseilles trilogy. “A bleak, affecting tale about a man on the skids, despairing of love’s ability to heal” (Publishers Weekly).

Rico has been banished to society’s margins; he has neither a roof over his head nor a steady income on which to depend. When a friend and fellow vagabond dies of exposure after a night spent in the Paris metro, Rico decides to flee the northern cold for his beloved south, for Marseilles and the warmth of the Mediterranean. Diverted and hindered along the way, he suffers the vagaries of human cruelty and pettiness, and is warmed by occasional, fleeting instances of human tenderness. His return to the Mediterranean is simultaneously a homecoming and a pilgrimage in search of lost love, innocence, and humanity.
From the celebrated author of the Marseilles trilogy, this is both an affecting on-the-road novel and a tender exploration of love’s power to both heal and destroy.

“Our last true romantic, Jean-Claude Izzo transmits warmth to his readers, as if granting them a mouthful of pure love. A Sun for the Dying is beautiful, like a black sun, tragic and desperate.”—Le Point (France)

“Like a chanson by Jacques Brel or Charles Aznavour, Izzo’s harsh, honed prose perfectly embodies that Gallic genius for balancing bleak unsentimentality with intense, frank emotion, making this a likely hit not just with fans of noir (including Izzo’s own Marseilles trilogy) but also with devotees of Charles Bukowski, Hubert Selby Jr., and other great modern tragedians.”—Booklist (starred review)