You Deserve Nothing

Published: 2011
Author: Alexander Maksik

An assured debut – but less Camus next time please

It’s always difficult to get to know new authors.  With so many books released each year it’s impossible to pick through the hundreds of unknown names.  Often I end up just reading novels by the authors that I already know and love.  It can’t be easy for new authors faced with the task of breaking down barriers and reaching readers like me.  Alexander Maksik’s debut novel You Deserve Nothing has certainly been helped into the public’s consciousness by the support that it has received from Alice Sebold, author of international best seller The Lovely Bones, who chose the book to launch Tonga Books, a new imprint of Europa Editions.  Its strong story and beautiful writing style will ensure that Maksik is a new authors whose name won’t get lost in the crowd.

Told by three different characters, You Deserve Nothing, is set in an international school in Paris where the sons and daughters of diplomats and businessmen receive an exclusive education.  Will is a dedicated young teacher in his 3os who inspires love and devotion in his students, Gilad is a new student at the school who falls under Will’s spell and Marie is a lonely 17 year old student with whom Will has an illicit affair.  The story is really very simple but it is powerful and addictive to read.  Will and his students struggle to find their place in the world.  The idealism and freedom of identity that Will encourages in the classroom become harder to maintain outside the school gates where the pupils are faced with violence both at home and in public.

Maksik’s descriptions of Paris are beautiful and evocative.  This isn’t the tourist trap that we all know but a city that is both vibrant and unfamiliar.  I felt like I was being introduced to the city for the first time ever.

The use of three different narrative voices is brave and could have led to confusion.  I appreciated each chapter signposting who was narrating this section of the story.  Although each had their own distinct voice it would have slowed down the reading process to take a couple of minutes at the beginning of each chapter to recognise the narrator.  Will and Maria’s stories both move the narrative along nicely but I was less sure of Gilad.  He seemed less of a rounded character than the others, his actions only existed in the context of his relationship with Will.  In retrospect this could have been deliberate, an attempt to illustrate how much the school experience defined the students.  But if you’ve got to think that much about a character’s place in the story after finishing the novel then it clearly hasn’t worked.  I enjoyed the three character approach but Gilad simply wasn’t engaging enough as the third voice.  Perhaps it should have been Ariel, the girl who first challenges Will’s contention that he has no power over his students.

What I did find off-putting was the constant references to Albert Camus.  It was as if Maksik was telling us over and over again that he had read Camus, he had understood Camus and that he was going to reference Camus as often as possible in his own writing.  The constant harking back to Camus damaged the originality of the story.

You Deserve Nothing is a perfect book for a reading group to consider for a lively discussion.  It is easy and enjoyable to read and is packed with aspects worthy of long debate.  I would imagine that different readers will have vastly diverging opinions on each of the characters, their actions and motivations.

This isn’t a perfect debut novel, but it is interesting, assured and thought-provoking.  I look forward to reading more of Maksik’s work but hope that in future he has the confidence to rely on his own talent rather than attempt to show his audience how intelligent and well-read he is.