Pascal Garnier (1949–2010)

The adventures of a 70+ year old man and his 52 year-old nurse. This starts off conventionally, becomes sort of a bittersweet semi-love story, then takes off to places only Garnier can act as a tour guide to. It just occurred to me that there is something of an affinity between Garnier's work and that of Charles Willeford, in that each creates a few characters, such as Edouard here, who act just as they want to act and that who don't have the least respect for any aspect of normal behavior and expectations. This one is quite memorable; Garnier is in top form.… (mere)

Oh my goodness, *smacks forehead* what did I just read?

My bedtime reading this weekend has been Catherine McKinnon's new 400+page novel To Sing of War, and I had a couple of novellas from the pile on the bedside table, ready to pick up if I finished it and didn't want to get out of bed. (Winter is on its way). Without paying any attention to the back cover blurb, or the clearly signalled label 'Noir' on the front cover I drifted into what seemed like a sort of Camus-like story of a fellow who is disengaged from life.

The story begins with Marc at a dinner party where he embarrasses his wife Chloe with inappropriate silence and then a totally irrelevant remark; progresses to what he thinks is a grand revelation from the top of a motorway bridge; and continues to the purchase of a cat.

It's when he goes to visit his adult daughter Anne in the institution where she has lived for years that my tired brain registered that something odd was going on. From the conversation that they have together, it seems that she doesn't have an intellectual disability, so why is she there? The ease with which Marc subsequently checks her out for a road trip doesn't ring any alarm bells, but why doesn't he tell Chloe about it?

Anyway, in the midst of what appears to be a mid-life crisis where Marc seems to be trying to establish an indulgent doting parent relationship with Anne, off they go. The story becomes more and more bizarre, with some off-stage violence going on as if it were an entirely normal occurrence.

Bereft of reading experience to make sense of this, I consulted 'The Dark, Strange Noirs of Pascal Garnier' at Crime Reads ...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/05/27/a-long-way-off-2010-by-pascal-garnier-transl...… (mere)

This is the sixth of Garnier's short books I have read in a short time. They are addictive. You know things are going to get quite dark after an initial setup, you just don't know how. This is perhaps the most nihilistic one yet. It's almost possible to pity the lead characters, a man returning to Versailles for the funeral of his mother, a woman he meets (and used to know quite well), and her blind brother. But they're really all so horrible in their own ways, that it's more like watching a train wreck. Except it's a train wreck full of really nasty people, so it's kind of fun. As a more positive note, this book may put you off drinking for a while. Remains to be proven in my case, however. Unfortunately, Garnier, like Jean-Patrick Manchette, is no longer with us. But as I work my way through their body of work--almost all consisting of short novels, or novellas really, I'm gaining quite an appreciation for French noir.… (mere)