Historical fiction set in rural France 1992-1998 in the shadow of a decommissioned blast furnace. Teenagers either doomed to follow the narrow provincial path of their parents' lives, or striving to achieve something greater via one of three routes: excelling in school, dealing drugs, joining the military. Very lucid account of the consequences of de-industrialization, if too psychologically straightforward for my preference... sexual frustration, alcoholism, petty theft, racial tension, resentment, violence, French hillbillies, basically as you'd expect. A little stilted in translation too maybe. Great sex scenes though, and I loved the repeated description of things outside the scope of sex as sexual i.e. France making the World Cup semifinals was "a moment of sexual, serious unity" (also the feeling of holding a gun, the smell of sleeping on the floor in a crowded apartment, the fear of getting hit in the head with an ax handle)