Christophe Tison: Il m'aimait (2004)

This should be a deeply shocking book, and indeed it is, as it's about homosexual abuse, pedophilia, although it's not condemnatory, not revelatory. That, perhaps, is one of the most disturbing things about this part autobiography. Or not: the past is a different country.

Separated, a mother is happy to leave a man with her child – the cute, (effeminate-looking?) kid on the cover, who could be, Tison muses, eleven, twelve, maybe older? Leaves him to be sexually abused frequently. Unsurprisingly, Tison grows up sexually mature beyond his years, and goes on to enjoy heterosexual relations.

But this isn't, say, Flavie Flament and David Hamilton: no, Christophe Tison isn't revealing the name of his sexual abuser: after all, when kids of his age were grooving on, for example, the likes of Claude François, he had been introduced to the worlds of Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, David Bowie.

A disturbing book indeed, particularly as it neither asks nor answers any questions.