Lila Says - Softcover

Chimo

3.74

548 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857025652 ISBN 13: 9781857025651

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 1998

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

An erotic contemporary love story, with the bestselling potential of ‘The Butcher’ or ‘Damage’ but of superior literary quality.

From their first meeting, the elusive 16-year-old Lila seduces Chimo with words. Is she speaking from experience or revelling in sexual fantasy? In this journal, Chimo records their meetings with dissarming simplicity, with an erroticism that is never sensationalised. At the same time he offers acerbic and witty insights into the grim urban environment near Paris where he and Lila live. Alongside the shocking ironies of Lila’s gripping story, LILA SAYS creates romance and beauty in a setting where those gifts are usually conspicuous by their absense. An original, unforgettable novel.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

� ‘Beautiful, shocking and very sexy’ Alain de Botton

� ‘A powerful, highly erotic and beautifully written book’ Maxim

� ‘A beautifully written love story and, I believe, a classic.’ Nigel Slater

From the Back Cover:

From their first meeting, the elusive sixteen-year-old Lila seduces him with words. Chimo is shocked, he's ravished, he's inspired. An existence mired by hopelessness seems suddenly redeemable. But are her graphic lyrical outpourings the products of fantasy or of experience? And what dangers lie ahead if Lila's words become reality?

Lila Says is the journal of Chimo, a half-educated Arab immigrant living in a squalid concrete jungle on the outskirts of Paris. Here he records with disarming simplicity and raw immediacy his relationship with the blonde 'angel'. His narrative brims with suppressed passion and builds relentlessly, breathlessly, towards the shock of tragedy. With bitter wit and street-level bluntness, Chimo opens a window on to the realities of life for contemporary urban teenagers. At the same time he offers a stunning, erotic love story that could become a literary classic. Through the mysterious alchemy of true creativity, Lila Says shows its readers the beauty, idealism, even romance that can be found in the most dismal and unlikely of settings.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.