A Leopard-Skin Hat - Outside of a Dog

Paperback, 122 pages

English language

Published Sept. 5, 2023 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.

ISBN:: 9780811234511

No rating (1 review)

A Leopard-Skin Hat may be the French writer Anne Serre’s most moving novel yet. Hailed in Le Point as a “masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and elegance,” it is the story of an intense friendship between “the Narrator” and his close childhood friend, Fanny, who suffers from profound psychological disorders. A series of short scenes paints the portrait of a strong-willed and tormented young woman battling many demons, and of the narrator’s loving and anguished attachment to her. Anne Serre poignantly depicts the bewildering back and forth between hope and despair involved in such a relationship, while playfully calling into question the very form of the novel. Written in the aftermath of the death of the author’s little sister, A Leopard-Skin Hat is both the celebration of a tragically foreshortened life and a valedictory farewell, written in Anne Serre’s signature style.

3 editions

Jim Brown reviewed A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre

a book about a difficult relationship

No rating

Fanny is hard to be friends with, and this book puts you into those difficulties. A beautiful book that isn't plot-driven but focuses much more on the dynamics of a friendship. A story told by "the Narrator," a writer who is trying to muddle through interactions with Fanny.

My favorite part is the parallel between being friends with Fanny and the act of writing:

"It was like telling a story: you had to be extremely focused in order to piece the elements together, to be in an almost trancelike state where forms arise and take shape that never appear directly to reason. You had to formulate a question as accurately as possible and, in the painstaking work of edification that ensued, produce the kind of answer that never states its name but foists itself on the reader as one of the truths of human existence. Like the profuse material of …

Fanny is hard to be friends with, and this book puts you into those difficulties. A beautiful book that isn't plot-driven but focuses much more on the dynamics of a friendship. A story told by "the Narrator," a writer who is trying to muddle through interactions with Fanny.

My favorite part is the parallel between being friends with Fanny and the act of writing:

"It was like telling a story: you had to be extremely focused in order to piece the elements together, to be in an almost trancelike state where forms arise and take shape that never appear directly to reason. You had to formulate a question as accurately as possible and, in the painstaking work of edification that ensued, produce the kind of answer that never states its name but foists itself on the reader as one of the truths of human existence. Like the profuse material of life to which a text gives form and meaning, the turmoil and mystery of Fanny's emotions demanded to be worked upon. She was the living example of what a Narrator has to confront every hour of every day. She was a book from before the book." (45)