One March 17th, a young man is struck down in a car accident. In a fraction of a second, his whole life changes. This young man with a bright future suddenly finds himself a quadriplegic, locked inside his own body. Without concession, Pierre Lembeye lends an unadulterated pen to this young man, to make the reader feel the situation’s absolute violence. The vertiginous brutality of the accident itself, and of what ensues, the utter confusion of the experience of absolute helplessness, the loss of landmarks… More than just a painful soliloquy, the narrative contributes to a reflection on the human condition, the bad luck of handicap turning into a hyperbole of dependence in which our entire lives are played out. Let’s not kid ourselves about some hypothetical resilience that would allow the able-bodied to escape the worst. The narrator, in his denunciation of a society that feeds on multiples illusions of power and individualism – starting with our automobile madness – declares that our future lies in exchange, contact, sharing and otherness…

Beyond good intentions, A Hand in a Hat recounts the deconstruction of the myth of individual independence. It cries out against the illusion of power that is all the rage in our society.