UNDERCURRENTS

A woman “kidnaps” her young daughter—or so it initially appears—in this skillfully understated third novel from the young French author of Pig Tales (1997) and My Phantom Husband (1999). But its characters’ identities are both shadowy and fluid, and the primary setting (an unidentified deserted seaside resort) is an enigmatic wasteland to which both the fugitives and their pursuers are inexorably drawn—and from which they receive a variety of gorgeously described, suggestive, and eventually explanatory sensory impressions. A beautifully constructed little nightmare: Darrieussecq’s best yet.