Standing Heavy
SynopsisPlot
The 1960s - Ferdinand arrives in Paris from Côte d'Ivoire, ready to take on the world and become a big somebody. The 1990s - It is the Golden Age of immigration, and Ossiri and Kassoum navigate a Paris on the brink of momentous change. The 2010s - In a Sephora on the Champs-Élysées, the all-seeing eyes of a security guard observes the habits of those who come to worship at this church to consumerism. Amidst the political bickering of the inhabitants of the Residence for Students from Côte d'Ivoire and the ever-changing landscape of French immigration policy, Ferdinand, Ossiri and Kassoum, two generations of Ivoirians, attempt to make their way as undocumented workers, taking shifts as security at a flour mill.
Story
About this book
Standing Heavy follows two generations of Ivoirian men navigating life in Paris as undocumented workers. In the 1960s, Ferdinand arrives from Côte d'Ivoire with plans to establish himself in France, only to find his ambitions shaped by the politics of a student residence and the realities of immigrant labor. Decades later, in the 1990s, Ossiri and Kassoum face a different Paris, one where immigration policy is shifting and the paths available to them are narrowing.
All three characters work as security guards, a role that places them at the edges of French society while giving them a direct view of its interior. In a third timeline set in the 2010s, a guard stationed at a Sephora on the Champs-Élysées watches the rituals of consumer culture from behind a fixed post. The novel uses these overlapping periods to trace how France's relationship with its former colonies has changed in practice while remaining rooted in older patterns of power and exclusion.
Gauz, himself originally from Côte d'Ivoire, structures the book around the physical stillness of standing guard for hours. The title refers to this posture literally, and the narrative draws its observations from what a person notices when paid to watch but expected to remain unseen.
