Excerpt from Submission by Michel Houellebecq, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Maybe I should go," she said after a silence of at least three minutes. Nick Drake had just ended his lamentations. We were about to hear the belchings of Nirvana. I turned it off and said, "If you like."

"I'm really, really sorry to see you like this, François," she said to me in the hallway. She already had her coat on. "I'd like to help, but I don't know how. You won't even give me a chance." We kissed cheeks again. I didn't see what else we could do.

* * *

The sushi showed up a few minutes after she left. We'd overordered.

Copyright © 2015 by Michel Houellebecq and Flammarion

Translation copyright © 2015 by Lorin Stein