The latest addition to my website is Vincent Message‘s Les Veilleurs [The Watchmen]. Oscar Waldo Andreas Nexus is a loner, living in the fictitious town of Regson. One day, he casually shoots three people, apparently selected at random, and then proceeds to lie down on the bodies, showing no resistance when the police arrive. As … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s Il faut beaucoup aimer les hommes [You Should Love Men a Lot]. This book has not yet been translated into English but almost certainly will be. It tells the story of Solange, whom we met in her previous book Clèves (All the Way). She is now … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s Tom est mort (Tom is Dead). This is (fictitious) tale of a woman whose four-and-a-half year old son dies in an accident – we are not given the details till the end of the book – and what happens to her afterwards. She is writing ten … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s Le Mal de mer (UK: Breathing Underwater; US: Undercurrents). This is something of a strange book, with virtually no direct conversation in it and not a great deal of plot. It tells of an unnamed mother who walks out on her husband, taking their unnamed daughter … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marie Darrieussecq‘s White (White). This covers Darrieussecq’s favourite theme of isolation, helped by the fact that it is set in Antarctica, hence the title. It tells the story of a scientific expedition based in Antarctica, focusing on two people, Peter Tomson, a heating engineer, and Esmée Blanco, a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Juan Francisco Ferré‘s Karnaval, a superb novel about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair. Ferré takes the story of Strauss-Kahn and his alleged rape of an African chambermaid in a luxury New York hotel and makes a wonderful novel about a character called DK (the D standing for dios i.e. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Pierre Lemaitre‘s Au revoir là-haut (The Great Swindle), the winner of the 2013 Goncourt Prize. The story starts in the last week of World War I, when all parties are awaiting the armistice. However, Lieutenant d’Aulnay-Pradelle wants his last chance at glory and promotion. He sends two men … Read more
Pierre Lemaitre has won this year’s Goncourt Prize for his Au revoir là-haut [Goodbye Up There]. Only one of his books has been translated into English – Alex, a thriller about a kidnapping. The winning novel is about two French men returning from World War I, ignored, neglected and broke. They decide to do something … Read more
French writer Christian Gailly died earlier this week. He was part of the Editions de Minuit/minimalist group. Though barely known in the English-speaking world, three of his novels have been translated – The Passion of Martin Fissel-Brandt, Red Haze and An Evening at the Club. I own three of his books (in French), including An … Read more
The latest addition to my website is