Entorse describes a turning point in the life of the narrator, who gives up on life after a break-up. Leo, 35 and aimless, drops everything and lets himself drift in the wind – without thinking or making choices. He swim (in pools) because he can’t really see himself in open waters with endless horizons. If he were in control of his life, and if he had a taste for travel, he would be an explorer – which he really, really isn’t.
Besides, to be one, he’d have to cast off ballast, because he is weighed down by a cat that he got stuck with. As well as by Florence, Mathilde, Pierre and maybe Charlotte, his mother and even by the absence of his father, by the memories he doesn’t have, and by an unfulfilled vocation as a lounge pianist…

With irony and refinement, Entorse, Philippe Mathieu’s début novel paints an endearing portrait of a 30-something man who can’t make up his mind about anything.