MAKE ME ANGER

Vincent Villeminot

(Les Escales, 274 pages, 2018)

“I’ll be the weapon, the club, the scimitar, to hit and hit the land of human animals. I’ll be your justice, judge, and executioner. Make me the vengeful arm, brother, you who does not avenge yourself; and I can point my finger, my weapon on the forehead of those who blaspheme against you. Those who yield to rapacity, who are prey to the pit. Make me Anger. Your resplendent dog.”

—Make Me Anger

On the banks of Lake Leman in Geneva, sixteen-year-old Ismaëlle becomes an orphan when her father accidentally drowns. With no one else to care for her, Ismaëlle takes on her father’s fishing business and tries to survive on her own. Soon human bodies begin to float on the lake. Suddenly dozens, if not hundreds, of naked, inexplicable dead people cover its surface.

 Ismaëlle then meets Ezekiel, the son of an African dictator called The Ogre, and who lived through countless civil wars. Ezekiel travels to Lake Leman to kill a Leviathan, Mammon, that he knows will arrive—sooner rather than later—deep in the lake.

 Together Ismaëlle and Ezekiel embark on a quest to kill Mammon. During their odyssey, the two explore their desires and their pasts, battling not only the monstrous Mammon, but also greed, lust, and tender, raw emotion.

 Make Me Anger is an epic, dreamlike tale told through the melding of Ismaëlle’s and Ezekiel’s voices. Vincent Villeminot gives us at once a breathtaking novel, a mythological story, a biblical allegory, and poetry. His compelling writing gradually places Ismaëlle and Ezekiel in an ethereal world, where the frontier between dream and reality blurs.

Vincent Villeminot is a prolific writer of young adult books. Make Me Anger is his first novel in adult fiction.