"I read what you posted on your Insta account. You're like a pigeon shitting on my shoulder: disgusting filth. Blah blah blah blah blah blah I'm a little shit nobody cares about and I'm bawling like a chihuahua to see if I get noticed. Long live social media: you've had your fifteen minutes of glory. The proof: I'm writing to you". Rebecca, an actress in her fifties with a career in decline, responds with these harsh words to Oscar, a novelist in his forties who has just insulted her on social networks. Realising that they already knew each other, a correspondence is born between them in which they gradually lay down their weapons. Both will remember the past and their fondness for drugs, until Oscar is accused of sexual harassment by his former press officer.
A novel of rage and consolation, Dear Dickhead is an incisive analysis of our society through the point of view of a cancelled man, a forgotten actress and a young accuser, in a story that proves that friendship can stand up to any human weakness. In a novel that is revolutionising French literature, Despentes unfolds all sides of #MeToo, feminisms, social networks, addictions and what it means to grow old in our society.
The critics have said:
"With this play, which delves, uncomfortably and incisively, into the times we live in, Despentes removes the easy gaze on the war of the sexes and proposes another perspective: that of commitment and friendship between a man and a woman when what is at stake is dignity." Diego Gándara, La Razón
"Despentes's Querido capullo is a great book, lucid, wild, hilarious and full of miserable tenderness. A whole place for an encounter with the person we don't want to be but who we are". Roy Galán
"His fierce and colloquial language, his uninhibited sexual scenes, his cursing are now a piercing look at social violence". Lourdes Ventura, El Cultural
"Speaking justly of the immense empathy she knows how to show with her characters, Despentes has undoubtedly put a lot of herself into Rebecca and Oscar, especially him, one might say. Their verve, their wounds, their misunderstandings and their melancholy tinge the novel with an admirable infinity of tones".
Nathalie Crom, Télérama
"Yes, Dear Dickhead is a utopia, peppered with piquant digressions, viperine tongues, emotional declarations, betrayals and reconciliations, failures, moments of grace. A utopia of healing, hope and equality".
Elise Lépine, Le Point
"His rhetoric is unstoppable, he raises his voice loudly, pounds the table, anticipates attacks and argues. None of the facets of contemporary feminism escape him. No doubt they will judge this dirty way of doing things, but it shines through in the eyes of the public.
Collection: RANDOM HOUSE
Pages: 264
Translator: Robert Juan-Cantavella
Ages: Adults
Binding: Softcover with flaps
Language: EN ES
Publication date: 14-09-2023
Author: Virginie Despentes
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE
Dimensions:139mm x 230mm
9788439739739
