Used book – Fred Hamster and Madame Lilas, Philippe Delepierre

Fred's childhood is a grey, flat land, somewhere in a working-class suburb of Lille. Life is boring, there are no expectations, the Algerian War drags on. Fred has no friends, and he hates his father's slaughterhouse and butcher shop. How can he escape this hostile little world? His only friends are an anarchist scrap dealer and an old popular dance trumpeter. With such humble heroes, Fred won't go far. But when Madame Lilas appears, everything lights up. She is Leïla, the Algerian woman, the one called a spy, a slut. She arrived in the neighborhood one day, at twenty-eight, fleeing her country where she was to be forced into marriage. Because she is beautiful, rejected, because she can help him achieve his dreams, Fred loved her immediately...