The Only Son [Hardcover]

A fictionalized account of the life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's older brother, Audeguy's second novel (after The Theory of Clouds) offers a fragmented, sometimes frustrating history of François Rousseau and the momentous century in which he lived. Born in Geneva in 1705, seven years before his renowned brother, and left to fend for himself after his mother dies, François finds a mentor in the Comte de Saint-Fonds, who initiates him into a world of science and reason while simultaneously illuminating forbidden desires. After a sojourn in a Geneva prison and a brief apprenticeship to a watchmaker, François escapes to Paris, where he establishes himself among the libertines and devotes his talents to producing devices designed to further his patrons' erotic pursuits. But as the Revolution approaches, François finds that Paris is no longer a safe haven. Audeguy's precision with respect to language and detail belie the novel's faulty structure, a series of short, almost truncated scenes that keep the reader from full immersion. Still, the novel's fresh view of an oft-covered era is worth the price of admission. (Sept.)
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"Audeguy's inventive novel profiles the older, smarter brother of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau... Francois's apologia is less a sour-grapes critique of his brother's theories than a cynical deconstruction of the evolutionary ideals they presaged." -- Kirkus Reviews

"The Only Son" is couched in an elegant pastiche of 18th-century prose, masterfully rendered into English by John Cullen. It's filled with provocative thought about "the human machine" and the blindness of "moralists" regarding carnal matters. -- The Seattle Times, October 23, 2008

For lovers of the historical novel, and those with a particular interest in France and the Enlightenment, this highly readable novel is original, thoughtful and delightful. -- The Toronto Star, September 21, 2008

Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions his older brother Francois only two times in his classic Confessions. In The Only Son, Stephane Audeguy resurrects Rousseau's forgotten brother in a picaresque tale that brings to life the secret world of eighteenth-century Paris. Instructed at an early age in the philosophy of libertine age by a decadent aristocrat and later apprenticed to a clock maker, Francois is ultimately disowned by his family and flees to Paris's underworld. There he finds work in a brothel that caters to politicians and clergy and begins his personal study of the varieties of sexual desire to its most arcane proclivities. Audeguy uses the libertine's progress to explore the interplay between the individual and society, much in the tradition of Jean-Jacques, but with a very different emphasis. Bold, erotic, and historically fascinating,The Only Sonis, in many ways, the anti-Confessions Franois' own, decidedly different, portrait of human nature.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions his older brother François only two times in his classic Confessions. In The Only Son, Stéphane Audeguy resurrects Rousseau’s forgotten brother in a picaresque tale that brings to life the secret world of eighteenth-century Paris.

Instructed at an early age in the philosophy of libertinage by a decadent aristocrat and later apprenticed to a clock maker, François is ultimately disowned by his family and flees to Paris’s underworld. There he finds work in a brothel that caters to politicians and clergy and begins his personal study of the varieties of sexual desire—to its most arcane proclivities. Audeguy uses the libertine's progress to explore the interplay between the individual and society, much in the tradition of Jean-Jacques, but with a very different emphasis. Bold, erotic, and historically fascinating, The Only Son is, in many ways, the anti-Confessions—François’ own, decidedly different, portrait of human nature.

STEPHANE AUDEGUY lives in Paris, where he teaches the history of cinema and arts.

John Cullen is a contributor for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt titles including: "The Only Son".

You speak so falsely of the time of your birth that I am obliged to lead the reader back to the period of my own. I first saw the light of day at dawn on the fifteenth of March in the year seventeen hundred and five, in a fine, cold house in the upper city of Geneva, at number 40 on the Grand-Rue. In memory of our proud French Huguenot forebears, the Christian name chosen for me was Francois. At the time, Geneva was a republic, but so greatly has the meaning of this word changed that I am compelled to specify that it was a republic in the ancient Spartan or Athenian sense. By this I mean that a handful of aristocrats, a tenth of the city's population, governed it absolutely, with power over matters of religion, money, and law. The rest of Geneva's inhabitants formed a great mass of indistinguishable people who had access neither to the good name of citizen nor to the rights that it conferred. None of this prevented the bourgeoisie of the city from striking noble poses and putting on airs of ancient grandeur. Our father, Isaac Rousseau, belonged by birth to the class of Genevan citizens whose degree of citizenship surpassed that of other Geneva's; our mother Suzanne, ne Bernard, was also a product of this privileged group. Our parents both rejoiced in their lineage, in a manner peculiar to zealots of a reformed religion: They believed themselves to be utterly humble, and the thought made them quiver with pride. I shall give here but a scant report of my early childhood. The perusal of your Confessions has at least taught me this: One should distrust his memories of his own tenderest years. For families are like people; they lie with every breath. As soon as the children are able to listen, the elders tell the tales which they, the storytellers, find pleasing. To this rule, the Rousseau's were no exception. I have in my memory a thousand anecdotes that reveal what kind of nursling, what kind of child, I was. Should I listen to my heart, I would believe those tales my own; but reason and memory softly murmur, assuring me that all such accounts are based on old stories regularly retold by my grandmother, my mother, and my father. In the end, by dint of repetition, they themselves believed their fables true, much as I suppose priests do: Having so often repeated the fable of creation, they are persuaded that they know the origin of the world. I shall leave unrecorded here my clearest memories, the ones that show traces of the sentimental style so dear to the Rousseau family; indeed, I shall begin with what happened before I was conscious of anything at all, and which seems sufficiently picturesque to deserve my relating it. I was born, the first of Suzanne Rousseau's sons, in the month of March in the year seventeen hundred and five. Some few days after the blessed event, my father, Isaac Rousseau, left us without a word. In one and the same movement, he abandoned my mother, Geneva, and Europe. So mighty was his impulse to leave that it propelled him