Surviving Eddy

In the opening scene of Édouard Louis’ autobiographical novel, The End of Eddy, its ten year-old protagonist is being spat at and assaulted by two other boys in a school corridor. It’s a difficult scene to read, and life for Eddy doesn’t get any easier as the book progresses.

Set in a poverty stricken Northern French village, it tells the story of Eddy, who identified as a “faggot” from an early age is lowest of a pecking order in a racist, macho environment that’s contained and inflamed by economic conditions. Along with loathing himself, he lives in inescapable terror.

The novel, published in 2014 when Louis was only 21, was a surprise hit in France, and since then it has reached almost half a million readers and been translated into 20 different languages. Now it has been adapted by Pamela Carter and director Stewart Laing for a stage production by the London-based Unicorn theatre for young people.

For Laing, it was personal identification with the book that kickstarted the project. “I grew up in a very poor, working-class environment, just outside Glasgow,” he explains. “Growing up in a situation where one thing is expected of you, but your inner self is demanding an alternative way of life is quite a common thing, not just for gay people like myself.”

‘Toxic masculinity’ is a phrase that’s come into common parlance over the past couple of years, and essentially The End of Eddy is a book about absorbing and then finding a way out of toxic masculinity, particularly for young gay men. The butt of his father’s emasculated rage, Eddy desperately tries to be more manly, to do what he’s ‘supposed’ to do.

“Eddy’s need to conform, his first way of dealing with this difference that he hates in himself is that he has to eradicate it and perform this cartoon version of masculinity,” says Laing. “He believes that if he does this often enough and convincingly enough, that he will become masculine. think one of the real tragedies of the story is that constructing a masculine version of yourself seems to be the only option.”

The title The End of Eddy refers to a change of name that signified Édouard Louis (born Eddy Belleguele) leaving behind his tortured childhood and the trap of his poverty-stricken background.

“The way he gets out is through doing a theatre course, and it’s through meeting people at the course that he ends up in Paris writing books,”

Laing explains. “With the play, want to give people the idea that the hand of cards that you’re dealt when you’re born is not necessarily what’s going to define you for the rest of your life. You can take control of who you are actually going to be as an adult, to a certain extent. think there’s real empowerment in that. Not just for young gay kids, who would hope would get a lot from this narrative, but for young people in general.”

Given the harrowing nature of the book, it’s not going to be an easy ride for audiences, whether young or not so young, but Carter and Laing have worked to make it as enjoyable as possible.

“I think Édouard has a great sense of humour in the way that he tells his story, and that is one thing that we’re definitely hanging on to,” Laing says. “Obviously there’s a big political message in the book, and indeed in our show, but think what we’re trying to do is deliver that political message with some fun attached to it, so it’s not all doom and gloom.”

Louis’s second novel, History of Violence, was translated into English this year, and again it’s a harrowing autobiographical tale, revisiting the aftermath of an incident in which he was raped and almost killed in his Paris flat in 2012. In interviews, he’s spoken about an urgent need to write about the violence that’s happened to him, about reclaiming his story with his own language rather than having someone else’s imprinted on it. Yet, he has given Carter and Laing free reign with the stage adaptation of The End of Eddy.

“He’s been very hands-off,” says Laing. “He’s let us get on and do what we want with it, and take it as the generous offer that it is. There have been a couple of things that we wanted more clarity on that he’s been able to give us some specific detail on that wasn’t in the book.

“Obviously, when he comes to see the show, there’ll be a bit of nervousness. But the reason we’re doing this on the stage is because we love it, so we hope he’ll like what we’ve done.”

‘The End of Eddy’ is at the Project Arts Centre from October 9 to 13, as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival, www.dublintheatrefestival.com