Nouveauté de Claire Fuller, autrice britannique que j’avais déjà appréciée avec L’été des oranges amères.
Ici, c’est un roman très différent, même si on retrouve son goût pour les personnages décalés, abîmés, marginaux.
Julius et Jeanie sont des jumeaux de 51 ans, vivant dans un vieux cottage miteux avec leur mère, quelque part dans la campagne anglaise. Ils vivotent, vendent des légumes, font des petits boulots, ne savent pas vraiment lire ni écrire. Jouent du piano et du banjo. Pas trop malheureux, finalement.
Lorsque Dot, leur mère meurt brusquement, la survie devient plus complexe, leur précarité leur saute à la figure, d’autant que les secrets de Dot secouent leurs certitudes et mettent en péril leur avenir.
Le roman devient alors un genre de thriller dont l’enjeu est social : réussiront-ils à garder un toit sur leur tête ? À trouver de quoi dîner le lendemain ? Avouez que c’est original. Le récit est à la fois haletant et cruel, car on a du mal à ne pas souffrir avec eux de cette situation si insensée et pourtant tellement banale. On ne peut pas repousser le suspense aux frontières du quotidien, il est là, dans le livre comme sous notre nez. La pauvreté n’est pas exotique au point de rester à l’entrée du monde littéraire, de la fiction.
Au fur et à mesure du récit, on assiste à un défilé de galerie de personnages, majoritairement pauvres, ou modestes, plus ou moins concerné par leur sort, plus ou moins sympas ou mal intentionnés.
Ce qui est génial, c’est l’écriture, précise, tranchante. Qui brasse les sentiments de Jeanie, qui se démène pour faire face, et de Julius dont on devine qu’il rêverait bien d’autre chose. Qui raconte le quotidien et les efforts à fournir pour accomplir des tâches qui peuvent sembler dérisoires mais sur lesquelles repose la survie des jumeaux. La psychologie est juste, l’inquiétude palpable même si jamais on ne tombe dans le pathos. Jeanie n’est pas du genre sentimentale. Mais elle doit gérer le deuil, le risque d’expropriation, et n’a envie de rien devoir à quiconque.
L’air de rien, beaucoup de choses sont rendues sensibles grâce à ce récit, l’attachement familial, la compréhension non verbale, les habitudes, la nature profonde des êtres, l’irrésistible envie de vivre, le besoin de solidarité, la défaillance des aides sociales, les manipulations quasi inconscientes intra familiales, la rudesse du réel, la loyauté d’un chien.
J’ai été très touchée par leur histoire, j’ai eu l’impression de connaître ces personnages. Ils vont me manquer.
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What are some movies that every aspiring cinephile should watch?
battleship potemkin (sergei eisenstein, 1926)
city lights (charlie chaplin, 1931)
M (fritz lang, 1931)
freaks (tod browning, 1932)
brief encounter (david lean, 1945)
out of the past (jacques tourneur, 1947)
the third man (carol reed, 1949)
late spring (yasijuro ozu, 1949)
kiss me deadly (robert aldrich, 1955)
a man escaped (robert bresson, 1956)
touch of evil (orson welles, 1958)
la dolce vita (federico fellini, 1960)
peeping tom (michael powell, 1960)
man who shot liberty valance (john ford, 1962)
the exterminating angel (luis buñuel, 1962)
shock corridor (samuel fuller, 1963)
kwaidan (masaki kobayashi, 1964)
dragon inn (king hu, 1967)
playtime (jacques tati, 1967)
once upon a time in the west (sergio leone, 1968)
two-lane blacktop (monte hellman, 1971)
aguirre, wrath of god (werner herzog, 1972)
touki bouki (djibril diop mambety, 1973)
the conversation (francis ford coppola, 1974)
the passenger (michelangelo antonioni, 1975)
nashville (robert altman, 1975)
the killing of a chinese bookie (john cassavetes, 1976)
mikey and nicky (elaine may, 1976)
sorcerer (william friedkin, 1977)
days of heaven (terrence malick, 1978)
blow out (brian de palma, 1981)
8 diagram pole fighter (lau kar-leung, 1984)
mishima: a life in four chapters (paul schrader, 1985)
tampopo (jūzō itami, 1985)
blue velvet (david lynch, 1986)
something wild (jonathan demme, 1986)
landscape in the mist (theo angelopoulos, 1988)
sonatine (takeshi kitano, 1993)
salaam cinema (mohsen makhmalbaf, 1995)
fallen angels (wong kar-wai, 1995)
taste of cherry (abbas kiarostami, 1997)
cure (kiyoshi kurosawa, 1997)
the thin red line (terrence malick, 1999)
beau travail (claire denis, 1999)
yi yi (edward yang, 2000)
all about lily chou chou (shunji iwai, 2001)
memories of murder (bong joon-ho, 2003)
dogville (lars von trier, 2003)
tropical malady (apichatpong weerasethakul, 2004)
silent light (carlos reygadas, 2007)
sparrow (johnnie to, 2008)
holy motors (leos carax, 2012)
phoenix (christian petzold, 2014)
personal shopper (oliver assayas, 2016)
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Peak Sales Hours (Eddie Munson x Store Manager!Reader)
Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader
Summary: After his first Black Friday, Eddie is exhausted and takes comfort in his new relationship with you.
Previous Part: Promotion
Warnings/Themes: Established friendship/new relationship, fluff, hurt/comfort(?), idk it's a lot of comfort, working in retail hell, Eddie works at Tape World and Reader is the Store Manager at Claire's in Starcourt Mall, angry customers, weariness
Note: So...hi guys. Welcome back to the Store Manager Verse. This little installment is sort of skipping a step. I had a whole thing planned and half-written of Eddie and our favorite SM actually confessing their feelings and being fluffy...and it's still gonna happen I'm just...on day whatever of work and have a big deadline and have had sleep for lunch the past I-don't-know how many days.
And it just took me back to the countless Black Friday and Peak Holiday shifts where all I wanted was to get back home. So here we are.
You can find my masterlist here.
Please do not interact if you are not 18+.
Enjoy!
___
Never, in his entire life, had Eddie Munson felt more akin to the heroes from his favorite fantasy stories.
Long journeys and harrowing battles.
Deep wounds and comrades lost to the beyond.
Hoards of villains and the promise of a better future if only there was hope.
Taran. Aragorn. Luke Skywalker. They had seen it all.
"What's taking so long? I just need a gift receipt!"
But none of them had ever worked Black Friday.
He had experienced Black Friday before, as a shopper.
Thanksgiving hadn't ever been anything magnificent in the Munson household, especially after his mom died. Wayne and Rick had always tried to make it still feel special for Eddie, with hearty midwest comfort foods.
There would always be a full belly and an even fuller heart with his uncle and his almost-step-dad around. Eddie could never complain.
Then after a late afternoon dinner, Wayne would pack up a plate of leftovers to make his shift at the plant that paid time-and-a-half, plus a little something extra from the plant manager, cash in hand. By the time Eddie woke up the next morning, Wayne would pull up with a box of fresh donuts, honk three times, and they would be on their way to the Kmart on Rt 9 and get some steeply discounted goods with Wayne's holiday pay.
It was always a madhouse, but Eddie could swiftly dodge screaming kids, empathize with over-caffeinated employees, and wait in long lines if he and Wayne didn't need to fret about things like work boots and gloves, t-shirts and underwear, and usually one nice little Christmas gift for each of them.
This year, of course, had been a little different. Wayne had been a little disappointed--he would never admit it, but Eddie could tell--that their tradition would be forsaken for Eddie's shift at the mall. But your addition into the Thanksgiving festivities had been a welcome one.
Eddie had extended the invitation weeks ago, when you mentioned you wouldn't be able to make it home to spend the holiday with your family thanks to work.
You, of course, promised to pull your weight--
"It's always really casual," he tried to ease your worries as you began to fret over what kind of dessert Wayne and Rick might like. "You don't even need to dress up. Come in your pajamas. Rick makes a really good pumpkin pie, and I have my mom's old scalloped potato recipe that will literally put you in a food coma."
"What about turkey?" you asked.
"We don't really do turkey." He shrugged. "There's only three of us. So we do different things every year. Rick usually catches some kind of fish if it's warm enough. Wayne has a good recipe for fried chicken. We were thinking of doing meatloaf..."
"I can do the meatloaf!" You perked up immediately.
--only to show up laden with a roasting pan for the meatloaf, a plastic-wrapped gravy boat full of some kind of mushroom gravy, a salad, and a casserole dish overflowing with green beans, cream-of-something soup, and heaps of french fried onions.
Eddie, of course, scolded you as you shuffled through to the kitchen, much like he had the first time you showed up for dinner at his place. But he also placed a soft peck on your lips, which earned him a bashful smile as you shoo'd him away.
That was a new development to your...friendship, if you could even call it that anymore. There really hadn't been time to discuss the logistics between the frenzied makeout session in his van outside of the Hideout this past Tuesday night and Thanksgiving dinner.
Now that he had been trapped at the cash wrap, ringing out ungrateful customers for the past 8 hours, he was almost loathing his past self for wanting to be a little discreet in front of Wayne and Rick. For not...making himself have the "what are we" conversation with you, because your lips had soothed every frazzled nerve he had the other night.
Knowing that at the end of the day that he wasn't going through it alone, that his girlfriend was also in the mall suffering through the mass chaos and that he could go upstairs and steal a kiss whenever he wanted...well it certainly would have done him a world of good to mentally prepare him for this.
For the entirety of his time working at Tape World, he thought he had been doing a pretty good job. Sure there were some hard days, some rude customers. But at the end of the day, an 8-hour shift was an 8-hour shift, and he was only selling tapes. Not...ending world hunger.
"Ah you say that now," Kyle told him on Wednesday as they were putting together cardboard "dump bins" for the discount tapes that would be placed every 10 feet in the store. "But Black Friday is a beast, and Christmas Eve is worse. You're honestly lucky you only work here and not at, like, Radio Shack or something. My buddy Todd has seen some shit.
"Actually, I'm almost regretting scheduling you as a mid but I needed a second key." Kyle rubbed the back of his neck. "Peak Hours. Mid's a rough shift for Black Friday weekend."
"I'll be fine," Eddie scoffed. "I've done mid shifts before. I'm almost excited. How bad could it get?"
Famous. Last. Words.
He had barely been able to squeeze into the store when it was time for his shift, the line for the cash wrap blocked the way to the stockroom door. As soon as people saw his name tag, they started shouting at him to open the other register, how they needed help; he could barely get a word out to explain that he wasn't clocked in yet. They didn't care.
He was no longer Eddie Munson, Tape World Keyholder and your boyfriend, probably, maybe...
He was a body who could unlock the electronics case and ring them out.
He was a husk who said "welcome in" and "thanks have a great day" and smiled until his face started hurting.
And for the first time since he had gotten this job back at the beginning of summer...it really fucked with him.
His legs were cramped from standing at the Cash Wrap for so long, he wasn't sure which of the associates had his keys, his hair was damp with sweat even if he threw it into a some haphazard bun hours ago.
He'd been yelled at by more people than he could count, counted so much change the edges of his fingers were pretty much stained from all the muck and grime on everyone's money, and had made so many returns from people with buyer's remorse that he was sure they had given more money back than they had made in sales today.
Eddie hadn't even gotten a chance to take his lunch out in the mall and pay you a visit like he typically would. He had just collapsed in the little metal folding chair in the break area of the tiny stock room. Kyle had clapped him on the shoulder with a quick "good job kid" as he left for the day and Eddie hadn't even moved.
"Alright Ed," Paulie shuffled over as Eddie wrapped up the last in a long line of transactions and was about to wave the next customer over. "Quitting time."
Eddie sighed and backed against the counter as Paulie counted him down. The adrenaline of the day finally started to wear off as he came to realize that it was all over, and a weariness unlike the one he had been feeling his entire shift settled deep into his bones.
He went through the motions as he went back to the stockroom to grab his jacket and punch out. He wove his way through the still-crowded store and out into the mall, sighing in relief as the cooler mall air hit him.
It was gonna be a mercy once he got out to his van. He'd drive home with the windows down.
His ears rang as he headed towards the employee entrance and he wondered if it would be worth waiting in line at the Orange Julius before he left or if he should just stop through the McDonald's drive thru or something on his way home.
"Eddie."
But then, he didn't really need to stop for anything. There were leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner at home. He could smoke a little bit, make some kind of meatloaf sandwich, and then sink into his bed.
"Eddie."
And sleep until...
Fuck.
He was gonna have to do it all again tomorrow. And the day after that.
He thought back to his favorite fantasy heroes and wondered how they did it. How they put themselves through endless journeys, practically sacrificed themselves time and again.
And he could barely make it through a shift at the Starcourt Mall of all places.
"Eddie!"
He crashed right into your hands as you planted them on his shoulders and prevented him from absolutely barreling into you.
"Jesus are you ok?" you exclaimed and pulled him off to the side of the walkway to get out of the way of foot traffic.
Was he? Probably not.
"Yeah," he shook his head and answered. He finally looked at you, finally actually saw you. Dressed in your Teen Vogue best, as you called it, although a little worse for wear, if the eyeshadow smeared where it definitely shouldn't be and your jewelry all askew was any indicator. "Yeah I'm fine.
"You sure? You looked like you were in a trance," you explained. "I've been calling your name for a little while."
"Oh shit," he sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Yeah, no...it's...It was just a long day."
You didn't hesitate. Your arms immediately wrapped around him and you pulled him in. Pulled him back from whatever precipice he was about to launch himself off of, and straight into the comfort of you.
---
Before long, Eddie found himself in your apartment, fully upside down with his legs propped against the wall as he enjoyed the Blizzard he'd picked up on the way.
"You know just cuz you can hold it upside down, doesn't mean you're supposed to eat it upside down," you laughed as you filled a pot with water and put it on the stove.
"And what are you, the Blizzard expert," Eddie scoffed. "If you'll recall I was the one who took you to Dairy Queen for the first time."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." You rolled your eyes and turned to grab some cans from the cupboard.
You had offered to make dinner--again--while he vented about his shift. Nothing as spectacular as what you made for Thanksgiving dinner, but it left the leftover meatloaf for Wayne to take for his lunches.
"You're lucky I like your spaghetti sauce," Eddie grumbled, a little sad that he couldn't have his meatloaf sandwich.
So he talked as you ran to your bedroom to rid yourself of the remnants of who you became when you were at Starcourt, and as you emerged the person that, he liked to believe, was reserved especially for him.
He told you about the back to back returns he had dealt with when he came back from lunch as you dropped dried pasta into the boiling water and grated garlic into sizzling oil.
He complained about the man who demanded help from a manager only even though all he wanted was a special edition cassette deck that had all the bells and whistles and anyone with keys could help him. His voice got louder and meaner as he quoted the jackass verbatim, but the sharp strike of your wooden spoon against the side of the pot brought him back down to earth.
And as he finished up his story about having to count Sam's register three times because he forgot that there were large bills under the cash tray, you joined him on the couch with a bowl of steaming hot pasta for each of you.
He righted himself and discarded the empty blizzard cup on your coffee table.
"First Black Friday in the books," you announced and you passed the bowl to him. "I'm proud of you."
"Proud?" Eddie groaned. "Seriously? It was a disaster."
"They always are," you explained sagely.
"You survived," he pointed out.
"So did you."
"Barely."
"So?" you asked and twirled noodles on your fork expertly. "Doesn't that count? This is, like...my 5th Black Friday? My 6th? I count each one as a victory. And so should you."
You leaned over to kiss his cheek, then clinked plates with his in a salute, and then the two of you fell into contented silence as you ate.
As Eddie worked ravenously through the layers of starchy, cheesy, garlicky goodness, he realized that the weariness that had settled within him after his shift had started to alleviate. How he felt more like himself now that he was sitting next to you, basking in the warm glow of your company.
He briefly considered this ritual the two of you had been engaging in for months. The way you shared stories and foods and got closer to one another. He had always been a little worried that things would change if he ever got his wish, if this friendship with you ever became more.
But it was like nothing had changed at all.
He wanted to ask, was tempted to ask, what this was? If this was a date, like all the dates that weren't dates hadn't been before? If you were his girlfriend now?
But then...he recalled the time that you had a bad day and you immediately found relief in him, how he thought that he didn't need to be your knight as long as he could be your home.
And Eddie realized that whatever the two of you decided it would be, whether you were still just his friend, or if you were his girlfriend, or maybe...maybe something else...
You, too, would always be his home at the end of a long battle.
---
Next Part: Disaster Preparedness
Tag List for Store Manager Verse is still temporarily suspended. Thank you for understanding.
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