In a family home in the north of France, a crime has been committed. But a crime of what order? Who exactly is the victim and who, if anyone, is the criminal? In Twenty Minutes of Silence, Hélène Bessette unleashes a polyphonic investigation, multiplying perspectives, contradictions, questions and doubts. Everything in this high-octane drama is subject to change, including the lighting and the basic facts of the case. Composed in her signature poetic prose style, Bessette's novella builds a world punctured by startling disruptions and unexpected shifts, and in doing so destroys and remakes the crime novel, creating a form wholly new. Devastating and exuberant, Twenty Minutes of Silence is a vital interrogation of the powerlessness of childhood, the compromises of adulthood, and the conventions of the novel itself.



Hélène Bessette (1918–2000) published thirteen novels with Gallimard between 1953 and 1973, won the Cazes prize in 1954 and was twice in the running for the Goncourt prize and the Médicis prize.