Their Children After Them by Nicolas Mathieu
Published 2018 · 459 pages · 121,750 words · about 14 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Their Children After Them to read?
Their Children After Them scores 54 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
- Mathieu captures working-class French speech—its slang, its rhythms, its particular concerns—with precision. The vocabulary stays close to his characters' world without condescension. You'll encounter regional and generational language that conveys authenticity.
- Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
- The prose is direct and muscular, matching the physical world of his characters—factory towns, summer lakes, adolescent bodies. Mathieu writes sentences that move forward without literary ornamentation.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- The novel stays grounded in specific places and moments: the motorbike, the swimming spot, the summer parties. Social and economic forces show through lived experience rather than analysis.
- Information density: 58 out of 100
- Mathieu covers years and multiple characters, building a portrait of a generation through selected scenes. The novel trusts you to connect its episodes into a larger pattern of decline and persistence.
- Narrative indirection: 52 out of 100
- The story unfolds through characters' actions and observations rather than explicit commentary. What deindustrialization means shows in how these teenagers grow up, what futures they can and cannot imagine.
- Symbolic density: 52 out of 100
- The motorbike, the swimming hole, the endless summer—these become symbols of youth and possibility against economic foreclosure. Mathieu develops them through repetition and variation, not explanation.
- Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
- Mathieu views his characters with clear-eyed compassion, seeing their limitations without condescension. The irony targets the system that constrains them, not the individuals struggling within it.
- Resolution withholding: 52 out of 100
- The novel traces its characters from adolescence into adulthood, showing what becomes of youthful hopes without forcing dramatic conclusions. Mathieu presents lives in progress rather than finished arcs.
- Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
- The book is organized into four summers spanning nearly a decade, following the same characters through adolescence. This structure requires tracking developments between time jumps, but the seasonal rhythm provides clear orientation.
How Their Children After Them is regarded
Their Children After Them holds a literary regard score of 59 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.