Fowl Eulogies

Paule grew up on a chicken farm. Now she lives in the city, and she is a vegetarian. When her mother dies, Paule has to take care of her family home and farm and decides she will continue with the family tradition. But she is innovative in the process and writes a eulogy for each chicken she sells on the market.

Fowl Eulogies is a bit quirky novel. I usually like this in novels, and I expected to love it, but something didn’t quite work for me. Otherwise, I’m still glad I read it. It will definitely stay in my mind, but I wish I liked it more.

I love how Paule treats animals with respect and names each individual animal.

Goodreads

 

Details:

• author: Lucie Rico
• full title: Fowl Eulogies
  
• genre: literary fiction
  
• format/type: bookfiction
• topics: #chickenfarm
  
• publisher: World Editions
  
• publish date: 02 May 2023
• pages: 176
  

My Rating of the Book:

• content: 💙💙💙

Excerpt from the Book:

Out in the middle of the field, Théodore is trampling grass in concentric circles. Once he has completed a perfect loop, he halts, then begins all over again. He bows. Lowers his head. He straightens back up. Occasionally a stone interrupts his trajectory and he diverts. The rain does not bother him. He treats it as a neutral variable.

Today Paule must kill him. It is written down in her calendar. She promised Ma as much, on the final day. The old woman was unable to produce a drop of saliva, yet she still managed to get several sentences out: “Théodore must die. You know, the one-eyed. I’d like you to do it.”

It was not a moment to argue. Paule nodded, docile. She thought she would not do it. Once Ma was dead, none of this would matter. Paule would return instead to Louis in the city, where he would console her in her grief, and they would go on about their urban lives. She set the date of execution at random, writing down Kill Théodore and then adding, in parentheses, (One-Eyed). Then she forgot. Now, on the designated day, it comes back to her.

Paule no longer knows how to kill chickens. She does not even know how to eat them. She has lived without meat in her mouth for twenty years.

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Théodore hailed from open fields. Though unfeterred, independent, and mischievous by nature, Théodore suffered from a disability, a blind eye, which he overcame with his nonchalant and classy manner. Théodore enjoyed walking in circles while pecking grass—but never in the same direction as his companions—as well as running in his own fashion, as if he were dancing. He enjoyed a special relationship with his farmer. It was a bond of intense friendship that only death was able to break.

About the Author: 

 

Lucie Rico is an author, screenwriter, and director hailing from Perpignan in the South of France, and currently based in Paris. She worked for several years in publishing and online media before devoting herself to writing for the page and the screen. She has directed several series and short films and written feature films. In addition, she is an associate professor in creative writing at the University of Clermont Auvergne. Fowl Eulogies, awarded both the Prix du Roman d’Ecologie and the Prix Littéraire du Cheval Blanc, is her first novel.