The Black Sheep

'People who haven't got any children miss a lot of pleasures but they also avoid a lot of suffering'

Philippe and Joseph Bridau are extremely different brothers. The elde, Philippe, is a superficially heroic soldier. Adored by their mother, Agathe, he is none the less a bitter figure, secretly gambling away her savings after a brief but glorios career in Napoleon's army. His younger brother, Joseph, meanwhile, is fundamentlly viruous - yet their mother is blinded to his kindness by her disapproval of his life as an artist. Foolish and prejudidec, Agathe lives unoware that she is being cynically manipulated , by her favorite child, but will she ever dicover which of her sons is truly the black sheep of the family? A novel with strong autobiographical elements, The Black Sheep is a dazzling depiction of the power of money anf the cruelty of life in nineteenth-century France.