A software engineer by training, Denis CHEYNET has no literary background — and perhaps that's precisely
what keeps
him firmly grounded. Once a staunch feminist, he took a serious beating and radically changed the way he views
the
world and the society we live in.
His debut novel, Tu crèveras comme les autres, a stark denunciation of the accelerating dead end into which modern society is rushing, was published on October 11, 2018, by Rue Fromentin.
Since 2018, he has been writing a new chapter of a novel every week for his son, who lives in Brussels, Belgium.
You will croak like the others
My novel Tu crèveras comme les autres is now available in English, under the title
You
Will Croak Like the Others.
A dystopia with no zombies, no robots.
Written in the future tense. In the second person.
Translated by the author himself.
You are the character. You are the target.
And you will not survive.
This book does not explain. It does not comfort. It exposes.
A ruined world. A delusional society. A fleeing individual.
Originally written in French, rejected everywhere, then published in 2018.
Now translated into English — unsoftened, uncompromising.
So that you read it as it was meant to be: direct, relentless, intimate.
📅 Released on April 24, 2025
💥 Available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover formats
Le mardi et le jeudi
Self-published
Publication date: November 2020
“What the hell are you doing here!?” screamed the Facilities Manager as she burst into the women's locker room. “I'm sure you're one of those perverts who hides cameras in the ladies’ toilets again.”
Thus begins the surreal descent of Frédéric Belloiseau, a mid-level IT engineer who, in a moment of desperation, declares: “I don't see the problem. I’m a woman today.”
From that point on, every Tuesday and Thursday, Frédéric navigates a Kafkaesque labyrinth of HR regulations, gender ideology, social norms, and workplace hysteria. By turns biting and hilarious, Le mardi et le jeudi chronicles a transformation both absurd and tragically familiar — where comedy masks collapse, and the individual is crushed beneath the machinery of collective virtue.
With shades of Kafka, Houellebecq and Bukowski, this short novel pulls no punches. A satirical farce on power, ideology, and conformity, it invites the reader to laugh — and then to wonder if they should have.
“Reading Le mardi et le jeudi is both an act of resistance and a compromise: the reader who laughs at
Frédéric Belloiseau’s misadventures places themselves, by their laughter, outside the
community of the righteous — and joins, de facto, the lost race of soul-dead
fun-lovers.”
— Excerpt from the foreword by Patrice Jean
Tu crèveras comme les autres
You
may hesitate to open these pages, afraid to see your own reflection staring back at you. Because this story is
yours, mine, and that of every pampered child on Earth.
“What’s the point?” you’ll ask, since the outcome is already known. Because refusing to imagine the worst is the surest way to make it happen.
Foreword by Patrice Jean, author of L’Homme surnuméraire, postface by Claude Secondi, cover by Vincent Cheynet.
Published on October 11, 2018 by Éditions Rue Fromentin.
Price: €18 – ISBN: 978-2-919547-58-6
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TV show Marque Page from Payot bookstores – 8 March 2019:
Editor’s Pick So often, so-called “dystopian” novels are full of zombies and other slimy creatures from another world. Not here. Here, the apocalypse is next door. The story’s “dynamic, modern professional” is hit full force by the collapse of our society: the comfort we all took for granted — and thought eternal — vanishes, not because of nuclear war, but due to yet another financial crash. Because the catastrophe has already happened: pampered and protected, modern man no longer knows how to grow vegetables or even find water… Written entirely in the future tense and the second person singular, this novel reads like a command. It reminds us that no matter what we do, we — the spoiled children of Earth — will croak, like the others... Laurent Petit, Librairie, Payot-La Chaux-de-Fonds "[…] society descends into civil war. Solidarity and civility give way to survival of the fittest. Starving city dwellers flood into the countryside, which won’t stay peaceful for long. A merciless battle begins. From the very first lines, catastrophe seems inevitable: the protagonist is doomed to die like the others." "One hopes this terrifying tale might serve as a wake-up call." Kévin Boucaud-Victoire, Marianne, 8–14 February 2019 "Tu crèveras comme les autres", first novel for a last man "A masterful debut novel from Denis Cheynet, Tu crèveras comme les autres, published by Rue Fromentin with a compelling foreword by Patrice Jean — a house author — who rightly calls it “a major novel about the technological and philosophical dead ends of modernity.” "The stroke of genius lies in the almost hypnotic use of the second person singular — like in the Ten Commandments — giving the book its incantatory and prophetic tone, and in the use of the future tense — the tense of certainty. The novelist foretells what will happen: the terrifying descent into hell of a mid-level Parisian manager, and with him an entire civilisation, swallowed up by the collapse of the techno-mercantile world." Christopher Gérard, Causeur, 2 February 2019 "Denis Cheynet: “The degradation of the environment goes hand in hand with the degradation of human relationships.”" Interview: "I believe we live in a society utterly devoid of meaning. The destruction of our environment mirrors the destruction of our relationships." "In writing a novel, I wanted to speak directly to Frédéric, the book’s protagonist — a man who doesn’t read much and who would never read the essays you mentioned. I wanted to shake him up and provoke a reaction. That’s why the book had to be fast-paced, accessible, easy to read, and relentlessly linear from chapter to chapter." "Despite its darkness, I hope some passages made my readers laugh. I like dark humour." Kévin Boucaud-Victoire, Le Média Press, 21 January 2019 "An apocalypse in the truest sense of the word: a revelation — of a born writer and a vision of near-cosmic scale." Christopher Gérard, ARCHAÏON, 15 January 2019 RECOMMENDATION: EXCELLENT "Tu crèveras comme les autres" by Denis Cheynet: a gut-punch novel, a "Gilet Noir" novel." "If you're one of those who still believes the worst isn’t certain, reading this book will shake you hard. You won’t come out unscathed." "Few books hit as hard as Tu crèveras comme les autres. It’s a literary slap in the face of extraordinary force." Paul Lelievre for Culture-Tops, Atlantico, 5 January 2019 "The tale of a foretold disaster" "Denis Cheynet stands out with haunting scenes, almost fantastical in the second half of the novel." "Thanks to them, this critical novel (of consumerism, our wasteful lifestyles, our dependence on tech and chemicals...) morphs into a kind of hallucinatory road book with almost gothic overtones. The ending, tinged with Black Mirror irony, suggests that in the survival game, there will be a few winners — and many losers. It sends chills down your spine. That’s on purpose." Bernard Quiriny, Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire, December 2018 L’Express rating: 16/20 "This isn’t Orwellian or Brazil-style futurism — it’s a soft apocalypse, a sort of forced degrowth triggered by resource exhaustion. A plausible scenario, according to today’s “collapsologists”. That said, Tu crèveras comme les autres avoids the heaviness of a “thesis novel,” even though its author has long advocated for degrowth. And when you close the book, still a bit stunned, and go to get a drink, you might be genuinely surprised that water still comes out of the tap..." Jérôme Dupuis, L'Express, 23 November 2018 "In this dark first novel, Tu crèveras comme les autres, this young author achieves something remarkable: unleashing a man into a collapsing world, and cruelly observing him struggle to adapt to a reality he no longer understands." Olivier Maulin, Valeurs actuelles, 8 November 2018 "With Tu crèveras comme les autres — evoking a cross between Straw Dogs and Mad Max — Denis Cheynet delivers a chilling, tightly controlled novel. A dystopian tale that serves, of course, as a merciless X-ray of our present age." Christian Authier, Figaro Magazine, 2 November 2018 "A title that speaks for itself... Clever, funny, tragic. A call to arms. A necessary book. It must be read, talked about, passed on." Librairie Tome 7, Paris, Pick of the week "Tu crèveras comme les autres, Denis Cheynet’s debut novel, is a chilling plunge into a collapsing society.", "[...] chilling enough to make The Road by Cormac McCarthy feel like a hopeful tale." Christian Authier, L'opinion indépendante, 12 October 2018
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The Adventures of Gaston, the Child with 10000… Powers
How do you stay connected with your son when he’s
been taken from you and brought abroad against your will? No modern communication tool can replace real time
spent together, and distance makes everything even more difficult.
That’s why I decided to write him one chapter a week — a story others can read, but one written just for him, and which he will always receive first.
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The Adventures of Nostage, the Wicked Child
Nostage is a child consumed by evil. He’s
ready to do anything to gain all the superpowers on Earth.
But he will discover that nothing comes free — and the price he must pay is enormous.
How and why does one become evil? Find out through Nostage’s story.
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Work on a Boat in the Pacific
One day,
coming home from the office, I noticed an ad in the subway for a dream job. It was a six-month contract on a
ship in the middle of the Pacific, working on the next operating system for the World Soft Company. To my
surprise, I was hired easily and set sail less than three months later.
I’m writing this to warn you. If you ever receive such an offer, it’s a scam. Do not answer the ad — and instead, read the story of what happened to me.
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