Red is my Heart by Antoine Laurain and Le SONNEUR

Red is my Heart by Antoine Laurain and LE SONNEUR

French fiction

Original title – Et mon cœur se serra

Translator – Jane Aitken

Source personal copy

I have reviewed 6 earlier books by the French writer Antoine Laurain he is a writer I love his books are great for an evening read he always take you away into his world whether it is having the presidents hat , a notebook or an old pop group there is always a hook that its the start of the journey in his books and the same is the case here we have a man that is sitting to write a letter to a girlfriend that has just left him. But the wonderful thing in the book is he has teamed up with the French street artist LE SONNEUR who has provided119 illustrations that us just three colours Black red and White to capture the despair of a relationship breaking they mix wonderfully with the inner story of this man’s despair at the relationship break up.

Today I posted

you a letter, a very beautiful letter, three carefully drafted pages written with a medium-nib Cross fountain pen in black ink. When I went to write your address on the envelope, my hand trembled and I invented a new one. An address that does not exist, a random number in an imaginary street which I placed in an arrondissement on the other side of the city 8 Rue Pierre-François-Flarmentier, Paris 15. I posted the letter in the yellow postbox.

You will never read

The opening as he writes a letter she will never read to him

He opens by writing a letter our narrator knows that she will never read and ponders that has he changed maybe the watch needs changing a new watch may change times maybe make some new times? All this is counterpointed with LE SONNEuR Illustrations that capture his a broken jigsaw, a couple parting the black is the male and the red is his lost lover in the illustrations and this really works as the book moves on as the hope of reconciling the relationship is ever further away. The memories of that time together ness are that shop that coffee shop the echoes of past time at one point he imagines he is in her apartment and says if I am here in my mind I can be there in my body. But as the illustrations show he may need a ladder to get to the bit of her that remains. He goes to New York this is where fact and fiction blur as the narrator sees a sign saying MON AMOUR is this fate no that is an art piece by LE SONNEUR.

Alain-Fournier is eighteen, and a student at the Lycke 1akanal when he crosses paths with the beautiful stranger. Shortly after the writer’s death, his friend and school. fellow Jacques Rivière said, “That brief encounter was the defining moment of his life and a source of immense passion, sadness and rapture.’

Without knowing who she is, Alain-Fournier follows Yvonne Toussaint de Quièvrecourt as she walks towards the Seine. She boards a Bateau-Mouche and alights at Quai de la Tournelle to return to her parent’s apartment at 12 Boulevard Saint Germain, still pursued at a distance by the lovestruck young man. In the days that follow, he keeps returning to that address to try to see her again. Finally, on the morning of 10 June, he spots her at the window of the apartment. The girl, surprised to see him, smiles warmly.

 

I always love books that deal with Memory and how we deal with it. Such as this is about the loss of a relationship. That shows what remains it s like that shell is a beautiful but hollow object.A relationship that has broken what remains is the moments here but as time drifts that is what the Illustrations capture so well the love of the women is like a balloon drifting away on the breeze always too far away just out of grasp. or a level t to be reached by a ladder that is just to short. This is a very quick read but it is one that has just the right mix of visual and narrative. THE embers of what was once there are being blown on to stop them from going out but there is always the chance to start a new fire as the last piece of heat ebbs away. I love Laurain he isn’t a complex writer. But he is one that manages to capture a lot here, especially if he has got that post-break-up feeling well. His book are a journey for the reader and this is in that gap in between those loves that void and how we fill it. Have you read any of his books? I have included a couple of  illustrations from this great book.

Winston’s score – A. This is another gem from a writer I have loved since I. first read him nearly ten years ago.

Three rival sisters by Marie-Louise Gagneur

Three rival sisters by Marie-Louise Gagneur

French fiction

Original title – Trois soeurs rivales

Translators – Anne Aitken and Polly Mackintiosh

Source review copy

I always enjoy when small presses find writers that haven’t seen the light of day in English. Here is another example of such a discovery from  Gallic books. A leading feminist writer in her time Marie-Louise Gagneur born in Doumblane she wrote more than twenty novels in her lifetime. They often focused on Anti-clericalism and the status of women. She campaigned to change the divorce laws, She was appointed to the chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur a year before her death. Her daughter was a famous sculptor. This is the first time she has been translated into English and is one of three books from Gallic books of french feminist writers the Revolutionary women series.

Henriette was twenty-five years old, with brown hair. Her features, whilst less refular than those of her sisters, had nonetheless a certain refined and intelligent appeal. Unlike her sisters, she was not immediately beautiful, but beneath her rather forbidding exterior lay a passionate nature, and her energetic and sharp movements suggested a stormy temperament that had been rather supressed by her upbringing had turned her natural tendency to moderate her bahaviour into a cunningness that manifested itself in the thin line of her mounthand her dark searching eyes.

I was remind of Mary bennet here in the story with the description of the eldest sister.

There are two stories in the book the first is a tale that is in a classic style of the time I was reminded of those period dramas I watched years ago. from Austen to even Catherine Cookson sisters as rivals for a man is a recurrent theme in stories around this time. it is a tale of three sisters and a man. set in the village that the writer grew up in herself. The sisters Henriette described as not as regular as her sisters but with a forbidding exterior lay a passionate nature energetic with a temper. Whereas Renee is described as like a Durer subject while her blond hair and blue eyes that look like pools of kindness I loved that description then Gabrielle is described as a mixture of her sisters the cat is set amongst the pigeons when a man appears the three sisters compete for his affections and eventually marriage. But when the race is run is the prize as sweet as expected !!

But Gabrielle, with her senesitive disposition, vivid imagination and a loving nature that bordered on obsessive, longed to find love as a prisoner longs for freedom and fresh air. She was like a carnation whose stem drooped under the weight of too many petals; she felt burdened by her overflowing heart. Her steps became slow and heavy and her shoulder stopped, her eyes were glassy and her gaze feverish, her pink nostrils flared ocasionally as if shewere drinkingin some hidden pleasure from the aire, she laughed or cried hysterically at the slightest provocation. And then paul Vaudrey would take her hand and look into her eyes with an expression that made her tremble. She was in love with him , and adored him with all the impulse and virginal devoution of first love.

They say love is blind her is a perfect description of that !!

I said it was like period dramas it is in the initial story the three sisters’ good have jumped off the pages of Pride and prejudice. I was reminded of the Benet sisters especially the description of Henriette was very like the way Mary was described. There is a second story a man loses his first wife as she is poisoned leaving him to marry his lover it is a shorter story the main story is the sister’s story which has a feminist twist on the pursuit of the man and also when they marry Paul is he all he seemed well given the time we maybe get a less rose glassed version than Austen did in her book once they married there it all went well here we get a glimpse at what probably happened when a modern woman of that age married a man. An interesting book that is of its time but isn’t aged and would make a great tv drama.

 

A Long way off by Pascal Garnier

A long way off by Pascal Garnier

French noir fiction

Original title – Le grandes Loin

Translator – Emily Boyce

Source – review copy

Well, here we have the last novel that Garnier published in his lifetime. Over the years I have reviewed his books five times before on the blog and he is a writer who I have enjoyed for his black humor and use of everyday characters in his works. There is still a couple I think to be translated into English as on his french Wikipedia there was a book that came out after his death. Anyway, let’s see what his last book is like?

He had spent a good hour leaning on the railing of the motorway bridge and would have probably be there still had it not began to pour with rain. Often when driving he had seen people perched above main roads like a melancholy birds of prey. The sight of them engaged in this sad and usually solitary activity had always intrigued and sometimes worried him. You could imagine almost anything about thme – perhaps they were about to throw themsleves off, of their bicycle, since they usually had one propped beside them. What were they looking at ?

A great insight into some one sad and lonely as marc looks over the bridge !!

As I said Garnier loved the normal folk of the world in a way I often think he was like a french version of the league of gentlemen. Where we meet normal people but with a slight twist always. Here we have Marc he has retired but is bored with his life? He has a wife but is want a taste of freedom we see the mundane of his everyday life at the start of the book. For me, this is a usual character from Garnier I have found in his books he is great at the later life crisis in people. So with his adult daughter, Anne who he hasn’t spent much time with and who has recently left mental health unit and the cat decided to take a battered camper on a road trip heading to Agen which biggest claim to fame is its Prunes ( which made me smile) after they had visited a  channel resort they decide to head further south. But as they head on their way Marc is a little shocked by what his daughter does. As the trip starts to spiral out of control. as people disappear and destruction happens in their wake.

Despite the stick thin shop assistants laughing behind her back, Anne would not be swayed in her dubious choice of clothing.

“The red trouser. The yellow jumper. The green coat. The shiny boots.”

She didn’t Hesitate for a second before the rails”.That ,That and That.” Her pointing index finger brooked no arguements. It went much the same as the hairdresser.

“Frizzy”

“You mean you’d like it curled?”

“No, frizzy, like an Afro”

“Oh…but you have lovely natrual hair”

“Frizzy and yellow”

Marc felt as if he were watchong an island emerge

Anne here sound a bit like Peggy from hi di hi with the yellow hair.

Now, this has a whole lot of things that I had seen in the other books strained family relationships family not knowing each other which is a common thread in his books. Boredom and the later-life crisis. Getting stuck in a situation which at times reminds me of what I loved in Magnus Mills books another writer that is great at the ordinary people caught up in odd situations and that leads to dark humor. Here Marc and Anne could have walked off the set of the league of gentlemen they have that oddness to them as they struggle with this road trip,. This Garnier at his best which is a shame as it was the last in his lifetime.

I Remember by Georges Perec

I Remember by Georges Perec

French Memoir

Original title – Je Me souviens

Translator – Philip Terry (with notes and Intro by David Bellos)

Source – personal copy

When I saw Gallic was bringing this out on the newish imprint Gallic Editions which has classic french lit. I decide I try this and have the JMG Le Le Clezio. I have featured Georges Perec three times on the blog and am working through his lesser-known books I initially reviewed Life a user manual which I reviewed alongside an art show inspired by his work.  Since then, he has featured his lost debut novel and a short novella. This is a collection of Aphorisms originally published as weekly pieces in Les Cashiers du Chemin between 1973 and 1977.

I remember that at the end of the war, my cousin Henri and I marked the advance of the allied armies with little flags bearing the names of the generals commanding the armies or the army corp. I’ve forgotten the names of almost all of these generals (BradleymPatton, Zhukov,etc.)But I remember the name of General De Larminat.

I remember thsat Michel Legrand make his debut under the name of “Big Mike”

I remember that a 400-meter spriotner was caught stealing in the cloakrooms of a sport stadium(and that , to avoid going to prison.He had to sign up for Indochina)

I remember the day Japan capitulated

I remember a piece by Earl Bostic that was called “Flamingo”

Here is a selction of them personal distant memoires and the war ending.

This is a selection of memories there is no real order it is just single aphorisms that all start with the two words I remember from personal insights such as his cousin Henri, A number of post-war memories like the yellow bread that France had immediately after the war, scarves made from Parachute silk. Then cultural references radio shows even crystal radio sets, actress in films, jazz performers. Sport a number of cyclists mentioned. What builds as Perec remembers and that isn’t the big things just no those little things make this an interesting insight into the man I’ve always been a fan of lists of peoples favourite films books etc and things like Desert island disc the little things that make us what we are and here we have lots of little crumbs of Perec’s life and loves. It is an interesting insight the 480 pieces build into a history of him as a person.

I remember that in the jungle book, Bagheera is the panther, Mowgli the boy, and Bandar Log the monkey (But what are the names of the bear and snake!)

I remember that Fausto Coppi had a lady friend called “The Woman in White”

I remember a cheese called “La Vache Serieuse”(“La Vache qui rit” took the manufacturers to court and won).

I remember a Mexican comic actor called Cantinflas(I think he was the one who played Passepartout in Around the world in Eighty days).

I remembrer the swimmer Alex Jany

I remember jaacques Duclos’ pigeons.I remember that Jean-Paul Satre worked on the script of John Huston’s Freud.

I felt a connection here I love cycling and I have read Satres Freud script I have to review it some day soon.

 

This was inspired in part by the American painter Joe Brainard who also wrote a number of a different list like this of aphorisms called I remember. He has a huge fan in Paul Auster and I was reminded of Auster story Augie march which got made in part to the film smoke which he took a picture each day which like this list seems not a lot but when you slowly work through the list it makes a picture of Perec and thee sort of chap he was. I feel it is like a collage of the man especially what he like listening to those old radio talent shows, certain French singers. Another work inspired by this work was Edouard Leve’s Autoportrait another series of Aphorisms that builds a picture of a writer. This is a nice collection of a writer that I for one have found fascinating over the years. Have you read this book?

Smoking Kills by Antoine Laurain

 

Smoking Kills by Antoine Laurain

French fiction

Original title –  Fume et Tue

Translator – Louise Rogers-Lalaurie

Source – review copy

I mentioned the other day that the Wodehouse prize for the funniest book in English had been stopped this year due to a lack of funny books. Here is another example of a great comic work in translation. Antoine Laurain is a writer I have reviewed four times before, his books are witty and usually have a turning point in them. This is a book he wrote a few years ago I imagine this was like the time in the UK when the smoking bans came in Place. This also moves the total of French novels under review on this blog to 98 nearly at the 100 mark.

I couldn’t believe it. Now that it was full stem ahead with the smoking ban, the rats were leaving the sinking ship. Vancourt had joined the enemy. He was as bad as the barman – another smoker – at the hotel d’Aubusson, who, ever since his hotel had implemented the ban had been vaunting the merits of his smok-free workplace.” I work better and can breathe ” he told me , earnestly. This man who from time to time used to share a smoke with me at the bar. And wasn’t the first smoker I had seen rally to the opinon of the majority. Strange how people are apt to turn their coats at once large scale .

I would call this effect the Simon Cowell effect when somesays something and every one around agrees with them

Fabrice Valentine is a fifty-year-old married Headhunter who is a compulsive smoker. When the rules at work change and he has to stop smoking there. This to him feels like his whole world is changing. After much discussion with his wife about this, it leads him to a hypnotherapist. But it also leads him back to the earliest years and how he ended up a two packet a day smoker. As his wife, Sidone has said he be best stopping. He does succeed the hypnotherapy has done its trick and this lifelong smoker has kicked his habit.That is until to one night he is coming home from work and is attacked and he fights off the man that attacks him.  In the end, throws him to the rails of an oncoming train he then runs home has a cigarette but the buzz doesn’t last like it when he was smoking. SO when a new colleague really e=getrs under his skin Fabrice has a clever plan !!

I would go walking with him my early teen. My father would puff on his cigar, while I was allowed a handful of Malabars brought at a backery along the way. Often, he would remember that he had brought my bubblegum while he was buying his box of Punch cigars from the tobacco counter in the cafe. “Your turn now ” he would say, and we would look around for the nearest bakery.For months, our walks invariably ended at Place du Colonel Fabien. Oscar Niemeyer had drawn up the plans for the headquarters of the French communist party , theb under construction.I can see my father  now, chewing on his cigarm standing motionless lostin admiration of the great structure.

I was reminded of my own dad who used smoke cigars on our walks when we were younger a smell that still evokes memoires to this day.

I said there was a turning point there is a few in this the first the decision to stop smoking for Fabrice leads the narrative to the nostalgia that for me is always a part in Laurain’s books. I remember packets brands I liked to smoke when I smoked. I was a fan of French brands like he has Benson and Hedges. I would often have Gaulouise Blondes a brand which seemed hip back in the day. It’s been years since I stopped, unlike Fabrice. I didn’t use hypnotherapy no I just managed with cold turkey and well a dislocated elbow that made rolling my own impossible just at the time I had stopped. The second turning point that leads to the latter part of the book is the attack at the station and the death of the attacker which sends the story in an unexpected direction which is another theme that runs through Laurain’s books. The nearest I could connect to this book was a section in the film Cats eyes a collection of Stephen King stories about a man that goes to a strange stop smoking agency that isn’t all it seems like this it has an unexpected turn when the main character starts smoking again.

The Portrait by Antoine Laurain

 

The Portrait by Antoine Laurain

french fiction

Original title –  Ailleurs si j’y suis,

Translators – Jane Aitken and Emily Boyce

Source – Review copy

I edge towards a hundred books from France this is book 92 and the fourth by one of my favourite writers or recent year Antoine Laurain is a witty lighthearted writer that writes the perfect summer reads for me with his last three books have brighten my summer evenings over the last few years so when his latest arrived a coup,e off months ago I read it the day it came. This was actually his debut novel in French.

That portrait of me, painted two and half centuries ago, which I came across in my forty-sixth year, was to turn out to be the high point of a collection I had been adding to for years .Ech successive year , each successive object, and each successive docket had been leading me here to this late morning in room eight of Drout auction house. But it is to the very beginning of my life as a collector that we must return , to my very first purchase. I was nine years old and , being a the good lawyer i am , I shall name that episode the “Eraser Affair ”

The first and last part of the collection maybe led him to his final piece.

Like his other books has an item as a thread for the story and also like his other books follows one persons obsession with the said item. The item in this book is a Portrait that has been purchased by Pierre Francois a collector of art , even thou this picture isn’t by a great name the second he saw the portrait,  he saw a bit of himself in the sitter of the painting. His family and friends are unable to find what Pierre sees in the painting himself. But pierre is like a dog with a rabbit trying to find out as much as he can about the sitter and artist of the said portrait  a key to this is a small coat of arms in the picture . As he sees a way to drift into the world of the painting as the history of the picture gives him a chance to escape his world. Like his other books we follow one man  journey through the past and  the city of Paris.

After driving for three hours and forty minutes , I parked my Jaguar in the little village square. Here  I was in Rivaille . There was almost no sign of life at that time of the morning, just an old Renault 4 , a clio and a little van . I got out of the car and took some deep breaths of fresh air.It’s only when you’re in the countryside that you notice how polluted, stale , and , worst of all , stupefying the air in Paris . I moved my head side to side ,stretched my arms then shut the car door as I caught sight of the nearest cafe . la jument Verte , with its “Lotto ” and “Tabac” signs I headed there for a double espresso and croissants, after which  I’d ask for directions to the chateau

Pierre nears the end of his journey into the painting .

This is a whimsical look at the life of a collector and how one can easily fall down a rabbit hole when one sees something of ones self in the art we enjoy , as a way of escaping the present. His other books always use the said item of the title the presidents hat takes back through a nostalgia for 80s and the great french leader, a notebook leads to a couple who meet across the city. A long-lost letter and tape reunites friends and this one use the Portrait to reignite a mans passion for his life  and a journey like the other books it is look back at a past and how this great city was in the past. This is almost like the Scene in Woody Allen where Owen Wilson character is given the chance to step back to the 1920’s in Paris , but we also see a looping as a character in the 20’s has a chance to go back to the 1890’s as she finds the 20’s that the Wilson character finds so exciting boring and this is also a  theme that is in the book Pierre francois is a man who has used collecting art to hide away the true sadness in his life .

 

 

Octavio’s Journey by Miguel Bonnefoy

 

Octavio’s journey by Miguel Bonnefoy

French fiction

Original title – Le Voyage d’Octavio

Translator – Emily Boyce

Source = review copy

I hope to reach 100 french books under review on the blog this year and one of those publishers that has helped me reach that total is Gallic books they mainly publish french fiction and this is the first book by them I have reviewed this year and it is one that was a runaway success in france for a debut novel . Miguel Bonnefoy was born to a Venezuelan Mother and a Chilean father he spent his childhood in France, Venezuela and Portugal this book was on the longlist for the Prix Goncourt for a first novel .

Don Octavio was born of this land,

He lived on the hillside in a modest , flimsy , slate clad house to which he held no deeds. The space must have formed a single room, was decided into a living room and bedroom ,  wardrobe stood beside a glassleess, curtainless window typical of the tropics , with a camp bed and rush-seat chair nearby. At the back of the living room , candles burnt on a little altar, casting flickers of light on the walls. Apostle figures were carved into beroom handles and also etched on glass which had been filed with rum to guard against misfortune . The scent of wild herbs hung in the air

His humble home was a simple beginning for Don Octavio

This is one of those books that maybe short but seems much longer the book follows the life of Octavio , we meet the young boy as he is unable to read as he is sent by the doctor to the chemist luckily whilst embarrassed a woman named Venezuela like his homeland opens this young boys eyes to the power of words as the two fall in love , Don Octavio grows and we drift into the past of his homeland as the church arrives land is saved by a lemon tree that is seemed as a miracle . Then Don Octavio journey to the heart of his country and the jungle and sees how the country is and decides to stay there .This is one mans journey to the heart of his country and feeling in doing that .

Venezuela suffered from acute insomnia , which meant that for the past twenty years she had to nap at odd times of the day . She had grown used to irregular bedtime, sometimes eating in bed and getting up in the ,middle of the night roam her apartment. the doctor advised ger to stop taking her sleeping pills. Out of embarrassment, she began avoiding pharmacies where she might be recognised and ventures out to the little chemists shops in the suburbs where she could buy what she needed unnoticed amid the anonymity of the crowd

The woman who teaches Don Octavio to read but is she also an allegory for the home land in recent years .

This is of course a book that owes a lot to Marquez and even in someway I felt Calvino . There is a magic realism at work When Don Octavio seems to move back through the history of his homeland and that is what is at the heart of this book an ode to Venezuela , we here much of their recent trouble this is a look back at what is the beauty at the heart of the country a woman , the forest and the chance to make something of yourself like Don Octavio he is maybe a sign of what can happen in Latin America where one can become someone from none . Another books I was reminded of is G Cabrera Infantes book a view of dawn in the tropics which also like this book mixed fiction with the history of his homeland in Infante’s case Cuba here we see Bonnefoy in an ode to his homeland and a fable like tale of what was and maybe a feeling that is lost . This is under hundred pages long a perfect evening read .

 

 

 

The Eskimo solution by Pascal Garnier

The Eskimo Solution by Pascal Garnier

French Noir fiction

Original title – La Solution Esquimau

Translators – Emily Boyce and Jane Aitken

Source – review copy

I can’t believe that four years have flown since I first came across Pascal Garnier , when Gallic books sent me the first of thew late writers books and actually in the line of his publish” romans “(novels )the first .)I have reviewed four of his books before here is a link to the reviews. I have found his books funny and dark at the same time he had a very black humour that is all of his own. It safe to say every time a book o his drops through the letter box it is a treat.

Louis’s mother took all her medication for the week in one go on Monday morning so that she could be sure she wouldn’t forget. That was he best day of the week . She laughed at anything and nothing,spent an hour staring at the pattern on her waxed tablecloth, moved her knick-knacks about and invariably ended up embarking on a complicated recipe for which she only possessed a fraction of the ingredients. At eight O’clock, she collapsed in a heap for at least twelve hours .

Now this is a strange story that is set in Normandy a writer has taken a small cottage after an advance from his publisher he has taken to finish a novel he is writing. Now the novel is narrated by a man called Louis, and louis has a job and that is riding the world of Older people first he starts of with his own family member his mother and then spreads his wings and starts to help his friends with their relatives. with their older family members . Now the serial Killer Louis has been written in turn by the writer Louis and people around the writer louis of a certain age are also dying . Has his writing seep into the world or is he really Louis and a killer not a writer .

Ever day at the same time I go up to my study, read over these pages and ask myself,” What’s the point of writing a story I already know off by heart? “I’ve explained it to so many people that the tiresome formality of putting down on paper is about as exciting to me as opening the TV guide to discover The longest day  showing on every channel. In an ideal world I’d sell the story as it is, in its raw state, to someone who had some enthusiasm for writing it.Or didn’t but would write it all the same.

Louis with his story he knows so well maybe to well as it seeps into his world as he works on it himself .

This is one of the books that make you think as the lines between the real and written world blur for one man. I was reminded of the film stranger than fiction where Will Ferrel is a character in a book but doesn’t know it so is louis a character or the writer or one the same ?This as the novel moves on is harder to tell as the lines between them blur . What is being talked about and done by Louis  is  Seincide(killing the elderly )  as it is called is also what the title refers to this is where the Inuit used to place old people on the ice to float away and die .Many cultures have myths or old customs around killing the old and of course there is a number of books and films about it as well like Logan’s run where 30 is the oldest people can be or the novel wanting seed by Anthony Burgess which tackles over population and has various solution.,I feel this maybe was a writer playing with an Idea of real and written life blurring . He maybe could fleshed it out some more but, it is the usual length of his books which makes me wonder did he writer for a certain reader as I find his books can be read in an evening and keep ypou think all the next day and more in many cases. Another in the late writers Cannon and on his french wiki page it seems there is a number of other books still to come out .

French rhapsody by Antoine Laurain

French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain

French fiction

Original title – Rhapsodie française,

Translator – Jane Atiken and Emily Boyce

Source – review copy

Well two french novels in a week and the second here is the third book by Antoine Laurain I have reviewed I enjoyed the two earlier books the presidents hat and red notebook  Both of which have a similar nostalgic feel to this book. His earlier books have won two prizes . this is his third to be translated to english.

Paris 12 September 1983

Dear Holograms

We listened with great interest to the five track demo you sent us at the beginning of the summer. Your work is precise and very professional, and although it needs quite a bit of work , you already have a sound that is distinctive. The track we were most impressed by was “Such stuff dreams are mad on ” You have managed to blend new wave and old wave whilst adding you own rock sound.

Please get in touch with us so that we can organise a meeting

Best wishes

The letter Alain got telling him of Polydor like their demo now to find the other band member , I live the song title just out of the 80’s

The book has a clever framing device like his two earlier books a starting point to the past in a way in this case it is a letter that had been deleivered thirty years earlier, but had fallen behind something in the letter box and wasn’t discovered to the house had repairs done the letter was to ALain Massoulier and was a reply from the record label Polydor saying that they loved the demo from  the band he was in The holograms and now this is 30 years later and the various members of the band have long since lost contact so Alain goes on a journey to reunite the band and bring them to polydor 30 years late for their one chance .But where have the Band gone Alain is now a settled but maybe not happy GP others he decide to do the 21st century thing and google them , he has vague ideas but what are they the other three guys and one woman well one is one the verge of being the biggest french leader another was an artist that last big piece was a 25ft brain (that rein me of Jeff Koons for some reason ) , another was in the movies and the last in the rising voice of the far right french . This is a story of paths we take in life how could five people in a group end up so far apart and what would have happened if the letter had arrived well that is a twist in the story waiting 30 years to be told .

Who is JBM ? asked the front page of Le Figaro above a photo of the businessman. He had grey hair now, almost white at the temples, but still the same melancholy expression, the same cat-like smile. His hands were clasped in front of him and you could see the domed blue cufflinks . This photo must have been taken at conference .He looked as if he were listening attentively to something or someone

JBM a fellow Band member but has taken a very different path to his old band mate .

Laurain has a real eye for capturing the past this time with the music and memories and stoking the fires in ones own mind I was on the edge of a band , well hung out with them and suggest a few ideas after this book I was left wondering what had happen to them. Laurain captures that band time but also he has shown how one point can lead to so many different points how five people’s lives can take such drastic paths into art, politics , movies sort of , being a face in the crowd and being the cheerleader of a baying crowd in a way each could have been the other but they weren’t and it shows how fracture modern France can be at times. Another gem from a wry fun writer that in this one will make you think what if I had that letter or piece of Take hart or poem published

Have you read any of his book ?

Too close to the edge by Pascal Garnier

 

Too close to the edge by Pascal Garnier

French noir fiction

Original title – Trop près du bord

Translator – Emily Boyce

Source – review copy

Its been a while since I reviewed a Pascal Garnier  I have reviewed three of his earlier books  , I have been lucky to been sent all his books by Gallic books and have read most of them he is always a joy to read. But a new year and a new cover on the series and this latest from the French Noir writer caught me from the blurb as one I would like. It is more than 6 years since he died, he wrote over sixty books it wasn’t til 2000 when the French publisher Zulma decide to collect his works under one publisher he had written books for various publishers over the years , this was published in 1999 a number of years before his death in 2010.

She was one fo those people who had always been and would remain attractive in a wholesome, obvious sort of way. She never needed to give nature a helping hand. Just a touch of lipstick now and then when she and Charles went out of an evening, purely for the raspberry-flavoured kisses. Even the few wrinkles gathered around her eyes brought a new charm to her face. It was as though time had polished her with beeswax. Only Charles’ passing had slightly dulled the sparkle in her eyes, and placed her smile in permanent parentheses.

eliette one those french woman who just look wonderful no matter what even at her age !

This is the story of one old woman, recently widowed Eliette , who lost her husband just before they where due to retire to their mountain home which they had spent many years doing up. Much to the dismay of her kids Eliette decides to carry on with her plans and she ends up in this huge house in the middle of nowhere. Her means of getting about is a small Aixam car (on a small aside I have seen these cars over the years and never knew they were french made ) which takes her on her weekly trip to the town to stock up , it is on one such trip that her vehicle breaks down just as she chanced on some new clothes to make herself feel younger and she meets the a stranger also stuck as his car has broken he helps her she then gives him a lift . Next day the son of a neighbour has been Killed in a bad hit and run, is it murder how did it could this good Samaritan be a killer ?

He appeared to be in his forties, not very tall, not especially thick-set, with a baby face. His shoes and trouser bottoms were covered in mud. As he set to work on the wheel, the rain began to drop like a portcullis. Eliette could not tear her eyes from his muscular back, which showed through his sodden shirt . He was finished in under ten minutes.

Her Hero or is he a kiler he helps her change the wheel on her car the next day a neighbours son is dead are the two connected ?

This is a classic piece of noir a stranger appears next day some one is dead. But it is also a look at growing old eliette is a woman on the edge of being old see is trying to keep young hence the rebelling and living by herself so when a charming young man helps her by the side of the road her heart flutters a beat. I do often wonder if Tales of the unexpected was popular in France at the time it was first shown in the UK as I often feel Garnier has a touch of that series in his writing A story that starts of about an oldish woman retiring into the middle of nowhere then the car breaks down is like a classic framing device that was often used in the Tales series of programmes. If you want a great piece of modern Noir Garnier is a must read I feel his books mix both the darkest parts of the human world and comic moments so well.

Have you read Pascal Garnier ?