Read An Excerpt from Helen Oyeyemi s New Novel, Peaces
A lonely young boy questions reality on an eerie train ride through the French countryside. Design by Ingrid Frahm
When Xavier Shin was eleven years old, the Parisian couple he lived with at the time sent him to boarding school in Provence. They had driven him there and back at the beginning and end of the first few terms, but midway through his second year, partly because both of them liked a drink too much to volunteer as designated driver, they suggested taking the train instead. The journey by train was almost four hours long, and he travelled unaccompanied. That didn’t seem appropriate for a child as soft-spoken and baby-faced as he was, but all he really had to do was find the right platform at Gare de Lyon or at Gare de Marseille St. Charles, sit on the train, and be met on the other side by a responsible adult. Other passengers looked out for him, thinking him neglected or lost, but he was fine. He read comic books,