Pierre Lemaitre ‘Couleurs de l’incendie’

Little Paul, aged seven, was standing on the window ledge, his arms flung wide. Staring into the void. He was wearing his black mourning suit, but his tie had been ripped off and his white shirt was open. Everyone stared into the heavens as though anticipating the launch of an airship. Paul bent his knees slightly. Before anyone had time to call to him, to run, he let go of the shutters as Madeleine screamed. As it fell, the child’s body fluttered wildly like a bird hit by a shotgun pellet. After a swift, hectic descent, he landed on the black canopy and disappeared for a moment. The crowd suppressed a sigh of relief. But he bounced off the taut canvas and reappeared, like a jack-in-the-box. Once again, the crowd watched as he was catapulted into the air, over the curtain. And landed with a crash on his grandfather’s coffin.

Since Lemaitre’s “The Great Swindle” (Au revoir là-haut), written in 2013 he has written two other books to complete a cycle of books dealing with the inter-war period, this book translated into English as “All Human Wisdom”, is the second in the cycle.
This book, covers the first part of the interwar years, beginning with the death of the head of the Péricourt bank, Marcel Péricourt and his almost state funeral attended amongst others by the President of the Republic. But this funeral, almost as a preface to these difficult years, turns to chaos as Marcel‘s grandson dives from a second floor window onto Marcel‘s coffin, as described in the opening quote.

This book covers the main theme of revenge, unexpected revenge. Marcel may have been an astute banker but as a Human being he was not too insightful. Firstly attempting to set up his daughter and heir Madeleine with his adviser Gustave Joubert, which after a short while Madeleine rejects, and then insulting Joubert in his will:

“To Gustave Joubert, the devoted and honest colleague who has worked alongside me for so many years, one hundred thousand francs. And to the staff of the Péricourt household, fifteen thousand francs, to be paid out by my daughter as and when she sees fit.” Joubert, who had all the poise and self-control that Charles entirely lacked, considered his bequest bitterly. This was not even a kick in the teeth, it was charity. He had ranked last, just before the maids, the chauffeur and the gardeners.

Lemaitre first shows us the connivance and insider dealings of a certain class in the interwar period as Joubert, in his role as adviser, leads Madeleine to ruin whilst enriching himself and eventually buying the Péricourt home for himself. And here, almost in Shakespearean form at end of this second act, he has set the scene for Madeleine‘s revenge.

This is an excellent series capturing the spirit of these interwar years, I would warmly recommend this book, which can be read as part of the series or as a standalone book in its own right.

First published in French by Albin Michel in 2018 as ‘Couleurs de lˋincendie’
Translated into English by Franck Wynne and published by Maclehose Press as ‘All Human Wisdom’ in 2021.

Tristan Saule ‘Héroïne’

It’s a heartbreaking tracking shot, and Laura is the camera filming the scene as she lives it, stunned by the composition, by the light, by the senseless emotion it provokes in her, the anger, the despair in her throat, the shame, the fear and the pity in the eyes of Marion, frozen on her doorstep. A small boy holding her hand.***

For my fourth book read this year for the Readers Prize at the Quai du Polar in Lyon I am reading Tristan Saule’s ‘Héroïne’. Set in the first months of the lockdowns, in reading it, I realised that there is now an adequate distance in time for my mind to ask if this actually happened rather than shrinking from it. The story takes place in a run down high rise housing estate there are the petty criminals peddling drugs, each zone of the estate, here the Heights, with its chain of command. But this is thrown into disarray by the lockdowns because after the first months no more drugs are available. Until a consignment of heroin could become available:

Lounès and Tonio get out of the car. Tonio locks the doors and the BMW says good night. An ambulance slowly crosses the neighbourhood, lighting up the square in a blue reflection. — what’s wrong? Asks Tonio noticing that Lounès doesn’t go straight in but is standing there on the pavement waiting. The ambulance slows to drive over a speed bump. Blue lights shine silently on the cars, the windows, the balconies, the walls and the two night owls. The ambulance turns left heading for the hospital, disappears. —Salim says there’s a bastard looking to sell heroin in the “Hights”. You’ve heard anything, you? In daylight Tonio’s blushing cheeks would have given him away. —No, he answers. Nothing special.***

There are the ordinary people living in these high rise estates, Joëlle who normally lives from cleaning jobs, paid cash in hand, but her clients are locked down and all are at home, there is Thierry, who can’t afford to buy nappies for his baby and there is Zacharie who pedals to deliver food but has no fixed income and only lives on commission. They are contacted to distribute the heroin:

Listen, says Zacharie. All day me, I deliver food. I pick it up in kitchens, and I swear, you wouldn’t leave a flee ridden rat in them. That’s my fault? Fuck, I’m a delivery man. If there are blokes that want to buy that stuff, that’s their problem. This, this is the same thing. — come on, heroin, it’s not kebabs is it interrupts Joëlle. My sister in law, she liked to get stoned on heroin and she died. My brother in law, he eats kebabs and he’s just fat.***

And then there is Laura, an auxiliary nurse at the local hospital with her life about to come crumbling around her, her girlfriend of two years no longer answers to her calls since the start of lockdown and she discovers the truth about Marion as illustrated in the opening quote. We then live an extenuating night in the COVID intensive care unit with Laura.

It only takes a small grain of sand for all of these worlds to come into collision, as the gypsy who is receiving the heroin falls ill and is rushed to hospital after telling his drinking friends a hidden secret about himself. Then under the effects of morphine he mistakes Laura for a girl he met in the war in Bosnia, Lejla:

All the while talking, Laura comes closer and pulls the sheet up over the gypsy’s chest. He puts his hand on hers. This time the movement is smoother. Laura doesn’t pull away. —The dope, he says. You have to go and find the dope, Leijla. I’ve hidden it but they’ll find it in the end. You have to get it.

This really was rather an excellent story with a twist at the end. A real competitor for the prize!

First Published in French by Parallèle Noir in 2022.

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

C’est un travelling poignant, et Laura est la caméra qui filme la scène en même temps qu’elle la vit, abasourdie par la composition, par la lumière, par l’émotion insensée qu’elle provoque en elle, la rage et le désespoir dans sa gorge, la honte, la peur et la pitié dans les yeux de Marion, figée sur le seuil de sa maison. Un petit garçon lui tient la main.

Lounès et Tonio sortent de la voiture. Tonio verrouille les portes et la bm dit bonne nuit. Une ambulance traverse le quartier à faible allure, illumine la place carrée de reflets bleutés. — Qu’est-ce qu’y a? demande Tonio en constatant que Lounès ne rentre pas directement chez lui et qu’il attend planté là, sur le trottoir. L’ambulance ralentit pour passer un dos d’âne. Les éclairs bleus frappent en silence les voitures, les fenêtres, les balcons, les murs et les visages de deux noctambules. L’ambulance tourne à gauche, prend la route de l’hôpital, disparaît. — Salim, il dit qu’il y a un bâtard qui cherche à fourguer de l’héroïne dans les Hauts. T’as entendu parler de ça, toi? En plein jour, le rouge qui teinte les joues de Tonio l’aurait trahi. — Non, répond-il. Rien de spécial.

Écoute, dit Zacharie. Toute la journée, moi je livre de la bouffe. Je vais la chercher dans des cuisines, je te jure, tu mettrais pas un rat pouilleux là-dedans. C’est de ma faute? Putain, moi je suis le livreur. S’il y a des mecs pour acheter ça, c’est leur problème. Là, c’est la même chose. — Enfin, l’héroïne, c’est pas des kebabs quand même, intervient Joëlle. Ma belle-sœur, elle s’est défoncée à l’héroïne, elle est morte. Mon beau-frère, il bouffe des kebabs, il est juste obèse.

Tout en parlant, Laura s’approche et remonte le drap sur la poitrine du Manouche. Il pose sa main sur la sienne. Cette fois, le geste est moins brusque. Laura ne se dégage pas. — La came, dit-il. Il faut que t’ailles chercher la came, Lejla. Je l’ai planquée mais ils finiront par la trouver. Il faut que tu la récupères.

Stanislas Petrosky ‘L’affaire de l’île Barbe’

I maybe have another, professor… Lacassagne and Gustini turned to look inquisitively at me. — Well go ahead, speak young man. Don’t keep us hanging on for no reason! —This….as I spoke, I rolled up my sleeve. —But why didn’t I think of that before! It’s a totally valid hypothesis…this woman could have tattoos on her legs which would have allowed us to identify her.

Next, my third book read this year for the Readers Prize at the Quai du Polar in Lyon. This is meant to be the first book in a series named after a street gang in Lyons, the Apaches, whose main protagonist, Ange-Clément Huin, an ex-member of this gang, assists the medical examiner, Alexandre Lacassagne in the early 1880’s.

This first case begins with an unknown woman’s corpse, with the legs sectioned and missing, being found in a sack, floating on the river Rhône. At the time the morgue was on a docked river boat, not close to the houses due amongst other reasons to the smell, and the law for viewing dead corpses:

It had frozen on the night of the 10th to the 11th of January 1881. The slight wind that deadens your ear tips was particularly disagreeable. Already a long queue was beginning to form on the river bank. Outside of the floating morgue which was anchored to the Hôtel-Dieu Quai, opposite the Soufflot Dôme, by large chains, the public was getting impatient. I had never been able to understand all of these onlookers who turned up to queue at the break of dawn to see corpses! They were thus able to quench their unhealthy thirst for curiosity thanks to the law that states that “any unidentified body brought to the morgue will remain exposed to the public for as long as its state of conservation will allow”.

Ange-Clément uses his knowledge of the criminal world at the time to help Lacassagne to better understand criminal motives and the underworld in general, such as his description here of his arm:

I thought back to a street fight I’d been part of….I was faced with several ruffians and had no more ammunition for my pistol. I had the same handgun as all of the Apaches. Which was a bit like that strange knife that the Swiss army had just bought for its soldiers. You could eat with it, take your rifle apart, and it had a blade, a tin opener, a flat head screwdriver and a punch. And so my weapon was at once a revolver, a dagger and a knuckle duster.

The idea for this series is interesting, the language giving a feeling of the 1880’s and the interaction of the characters seems good, but the crime itself and its resolution, or in this case non resolution felt like a book only half finished and left me slightly frustrated in spite of the many many pages of reference texts about the characters and period at the end of the book. Unfinished is the feeling that remains with me at the end.

First Published in French by AFITT editions in 2022.

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Moi, j’en aurais peut-être bien une autre, professeur… Lacassagne et Gustini se tournèrent vers moi avec des yeux pleins d’interrogation. — Eh bien allez-y, parlez, mon garçon. Ne nous faites point donc languir plus que de raison ! — Ça… En parlant, je retroussai ma manche afin de laisser apparaître mon avant-bras. — Mais comment n’y ai-je pas pensé plus tôt ! C’est une hypothèse tout à fait possible… Cette femme pouvait être tatouée sur les jambes, ce qui aurait permis de l’identifier.

Il avait gelé dans la nuit du 10 au 11 janvier 1881. Le petit vent qui vous engourdissait la pointe des oreilles n’était pas ce qu’il y avait de plus agréable. Déjà, une longue file commençait à naître sur la rive. Le public s’impatientait devant la morgue flottante amarrée par de grosses chaînes sur le quai de l’Hôtel-Dieu, en face du grand Dôme de Soufflot. Jamais je n’avais pu comprendre tous ces badauds qui venaient aux aurores faire la queue pour pouvoir voir du macchabée ! Ils profitaient, pour assouvir leur curiosité malsaine, du règlement qui disait que « le cadavre de toute personne inconnue apporté à la morgue restera exposé aux regards du public tant que son état de conservation le permettra ».

Je repensais à une bagarre de rue à laquelle j’avais été mêlé… Plusieurs bougres me faisaient face, et je n’avais plus de munitions dans mon revolver. Je disposais de la même arme de poing que tous les Apaches. Qui était un peu comme ce drôle de couteau que l’armée suisse venait d’acheter pour ses soldats. On pouvait manger avec, démonter le fusil d’ordonnance, et il disposait d’une lame, d’un ouvre-boîte, d’un tournevis plat et un poinçon. Eh bien mon arme faisait office de revolver, de surin et de coup-de-poing américain.

Benoît Séverac ‘Le tableau du peintre juif’

The Yellow Vests killed me. The sentence could make you laugh. My generation – I’m fifty two years old – remember the Omar Raddad affair , where he was never clearly shown to be guilty. In my case it couldn’t be clearer: I was dead already by the second weekend of the Yellow Vest demonstrations at it was them, the roundabout rebels, that were guilty. I had a transport company. Small. Three lorries, including the one I drove, and three employees including the secretary.

Into my second book read this year for the Readers Prize at the Quai du Polar in Lyon. This is the second book by Severac read for this prize after “Tuer le fils” read in 2021 and from the same publisher. The main protagonist of this story is Stéphane Milhas, a person that has been full of energy in his life, setting up more than one business, such as at the beginning of the story a haulage company that goes under due to outside forces. in this instance the yellow vests as illustarted in the opening quote. This is a blueprint for Milhas, outside forces acting on him, and him fighting against these forces.

Milhas’s aunt and uncle are cleaning up their lives having decided to enter an old persons home and leave him a painting from his grandfather, a member of the resistance, painted by a Jew that his father had helped escape during the war, he decides to get his grandfather recognised as Righteous Among the nations, a task to get him out of his slump as his wife, Irène had said:

She’s right, I wallowed in my classification as a victim through all these months of being unemployed. And to be quite frank about it, I didn’t set out to get the recognition of Righteous Among the Nations for my grandparents, but for myself. I realise that. I can see that clearly now.

The first section of the book follows Milhas in his quest and eventually to Tel Aviv to have his painting verified before the announcement. However this is where things go seriously wrong, there seems to be an error in the timelines as his grandfather had helped Eli Trudel and his wife to escape from France after their confirmed death in the camps, he is initially arrested, his painting is confiscated and his grandfather’s name soiled.

Since I haven’t stopped asking why I had been arrested. “What’s happening? What have I done?” They didn’t utter a word. Until an officer appeared accompanied by an interpreter to tell me that my painting had been seized. Stolen Art. Spoliation from Jews. The Shoah, the camps, denunciations….I’ve just tumbled into the wrong side of History. Well at the very least, my grandfather. But it was as if it was me. My family, my name….ruined; We are officially bastards.

Then begins a Tour de France and of Spain as he seeks to unravel the story and clear his grandfather’s name. I must admit that I lost a little interest as he went from location to location with descriptions of the places etc; not a winner for me.

First Published in French by La manufacture de livres in 2022.

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Depuis, je n’ai cessé de demander les raisons de mon arrestation. « Que se passe-t-il ? Qu’ai-je fait ? » Ils ont observé un mutisme total. Jusqu’à ce qu’un officier se présente accompagné d’un interprète et me signifie la saisie de mon tableau. Art volé. Spoliateur de Juifs. La Shoah, les camps, les dénonciations… Je viens de basculer du mauvais côté de l’Histoire. Tout au moins, mon grand-père. Mais c’est comme si c’était moi. Ma famille, mon nom… salis ; nous sommes officiellement des salauds.

Les Gilets jaunes m’ont tuer. » La phrase pourrait prêter à sourire. Ceux de ma génération – j’ai cinquante-deux ans – se souviennent de l’affaire Omar Raddad dont la culpabilité n’a jamais été clairement établie. Dans mon cas, c’est on ne peut plus transparent : je suis mort dès le deuxième week-end de manifestations des Gilets jaunes, et ce sont bien eux, les révoltés des ronds-points, les coupables. J’avais une entreprise de transport. Petite. Trois camions, dont celui que je conduisais, et trois employés en comptant la secrétaire.

Elle a raison, je me suis complu dans ma situation de victime pendant tous ces mois de chômage. Et pour être tout à fait franc, je ne me suis pas lancé dans cette reconnaissance du statut de Justes parmi les Nations pour mes grands-parents, mais pour moi. J’en suis conscient. Je suis plus lucide maintenant.

Stéphane Milhas, Irène, Eli Trudel

Roxanne Bouchard ‘Nous sommes le sel de La mer’

Gaspésie is a land for the poor whose only wealth is the sea, then the sea dies. It’s a jumble of memories, a country which shuts its gob, and so doesn’t upset anyone, a land of misery with only the open sea as comfort. And so we hung on like men with nothing. Like fisherman that need to be consoled.***

“We Were the Salt of the Sea” , by Roxane Bouchard was my first book read this year for the Readers Prize at the Quai du Polar in Lyon this year. This a book about a remote fishing village in Quebec, at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence river. A land of fishermen before the sea fish, the cod and the Mackerel became rare, emprisoning the older villagers as the community ages and the younger generations tries to make the switch to tourism, as illustrated in the opening quote.
I will admit that the writing, trying to convey the local vernacular nearly lost me, the writing can only do half of the work and I don’t really have a reference in my mind for the musicality of this particular way of speaking allowing me to do my half of the work, I was further confused by the Hiiii before every sentence spoken by Cyrille, thinking it was his way of speaking ( but before every sentence), only learning at the end that he had trouble breathing. But with Vital always saying “saint-ciboire-de-câlisse?” With every sentence and Renaud beginning every sentence with “j’m’en vas vous dire rien qu’une affaire,” I confess I found this off putting.

But I persevered through the first thirty pages, and what chance, this is a marvellous book!
Set mostly in the modern day but with a couple of flashbacks to the seventies. As the book begins back then, a woman is giving birth alone on a yacht, a sailor on another ship in the dock hears screaming and comes aboard, helping to finish the birth.
Forward to the present day as a drowned dead body is caught early one morning:

“Hiiii…Hi youngster! So you came in the end! — Well yeah! — Well we’re not going straight away. — what do you mean? What’s up? — It’s Vital. Hiiii… You who likes that, fishing stories, well you’re gonna get one! — I don’t follow. — Seems he caught a someone drowned in his net…. Hiiii…. S’what he said on his VHF radio.”***

We soon learn that the dead body is Marie Garant, a woman in her sixties who’s home is here but spends her life sailing around the world and only coming back every few years for a short stay. Why was the detective from the City, Montréal, chosen to investigate in this village where everyone knows everyone and the coroner decides from the start that this must be an accident, she must have hit her head on the boom and fallen overboard. Who is the young woman Catherine Day that turned up around the time of the “accident” and is asking questions? Nearly all of the protagonists are of a similar age to Marie Garant. And why does she always go back to sea, as Cyrille tells Catherine:

Exoticism is a trap, doc, temporary entertainment for amateur photographers that make a scrapbook of their lives.***

The facts, or the memories of this story: another sea death when every fishing family has lost someone at sea, this is not an unusual event, are slowly, almost reluctantly distilled over 300 pages as Roxanne Bouchard slows the story down to the speed of the sea.
This is a clear possible winner.

First Published in French by vlb éditeur in 2022.

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

«La Gaspésie, c’est une terre de pauvres qui a juste la mer pour richesse, pis la mer se meurt. C’est un agrégat de souvenirs, un pays qui ferme sa gueule pis qui écœure personne, une contrée de misère que la beauté du large console. Pis on s’y accroche comme des hommes de rien. Comme des pêcheurs qui ont besoin d’être consolés.»

«Hiiii… Salut la p’tite! T’es venue, finalement! — Ben oui! — Mais on partira pas tout de suite. — Comment ça? Qu’est-ce qui se passe? — C’est Vital. Hiiii… Toi qui aimes ça, les histoires de pêche, tu vas en avoir toute une! — Je comprends pas. — Ça a l’air qu’y’a ramassé un noyé dans son filet… Hiiii… Y l’a dit dans sa radio marine.»

L’exotisme, c’est un leurre, doc, un divertissement temporaire pour les amateurs de photos qui font du scrapbooking avec leur vie.

Celeste Ng ‘Our Missing Hearts’

We know who caused all this people were beginning to say. Ask yourself who’s doing well because we’re on the decline, fingers pointed firmly east, look how China’s GDP was rising their standard of living climbing, Over there you’ve got Chinese rice farmers with smartphones one congressman ranted on the house floor, over here in the US of A you got Americans using buckets for toilets because their water’s turned off for non payment. Tell me how that’s not backwards, just tell me.

Celeste Ng brings us a dystopian novel of a society turned inward on itself following a terrible depression and riots, The USA. The first step is to identify a scapegoat, China as illustrated in the opening paragraph. The second step is to create “entirely justifiable laws” to protect all Americans from un American ideas, PACT:

PACT “Preserving American Culture and Traditions”, a solemn promise to root out any anti-American elements undermining the nation…..Investing in America, funding for new initiatives to monitor China, and new watchdog groups to sniff out those who’s loyalties might be divided, rewards for citizen vigilance, information leading to potential troublemakers and finally, most crucially, preventing the spread of un-American views quietly removing children from un-American environments, the definition of which was ever expanding.

And the third step is then as described above, to remove children from homes considered anti PACT, often by denunciation .

Celeste No tells us this story through the eyes of Bird Gardner, a third generation descendant of Chinese immigrants. Bird is brought up by his father, not to make waves, to avoid trouble. We soon learn that his mother, an insignificant Chinese American Poet left him and his father one day without saying goodbye when he was nine years old. One day, Bird who has no friends at school meets a new pupil, Sadie, who lives with foster parents and who has moved several times, Sadie had, for a school assignment chosen to investigate families who’s children dad been taken under PACT and was soon after, herself, placed with foster parents and no longer knew where her own parents were.

We slowly learn that Bird’s mother left home to protect Bird after a piece of wild chance, a PACT protestor was killed and the photograph taken of her showed her with a copy of Margaret Miu’s poem Our Missing Hearts, the protestors begin using this phrase to represent resistance to PACT, and so Margaret Miu quickly becomes an enemy, a wanted person. We then learn the story of Margaret, whose own parents had tried to not make waves:

PACT was decades away but her parents felt it already, the eyes of the neighbourhood scrutinising their every move. Blending in they decided was their best option. So after she was born they dresses her in pink corduroy overalls and Mary Janes, tied ribbons in her pig tailed hair. When she got older they would buy her clothes off of the headless mannequin at the department store. Anything it wore she wore. Surreptitiously they studied the neighbourhood children and bought Margaret what they saw, Barbies, a Dream House, a cabbage Patch kid named Susana Marigold, a pink bike with white streamer handles, a toy oven that baked brownies by the light of a bulb: suburban camouflage from the Sears’ catalogue. Her father saying the stick hits the bird who holds its head the highest.

As one day Bird finds a hidden message and runs away to find his mother, she is preparing an audacious action to ensure that the taken children should not be forgotten.

First published in English by Penguin Press in 2022

Patrick Radden Keefe ‘Say Nothing’

One Summer day in 2013, two detectives strode into the Burns Library. They were not Boston detectives. In fact, they had just flown into the country from Belfast, they were working for the serious Crime Branch of the Police Service of Northern Ireland….The detectives had come to collect a series of secret files….The recordings were now officially evidence in a criminal proceedings. The detectives were investigating a murder.

So, in the summer I was offered this book by my daughter and her beau. Was Gerry Adams a member of the provisional IRA as he denies, this is the question at the heart of this thick, well researched book which sets out the geography of “The Troubles”, the book does a minimum on the origins, treated either way in great detail elsewhere. There are two starting points for this work, one historical, the “disappearance” of Jean McConville, a mother of ten from her home in the Divis flats, a public housing complex in West Belfast, and a second more recent event, as described in the opening quotes of the recordings of key actors in the Provisional IRA made after the peace agreements.

Secondly, the recordings: there was as in any terrorist organisation an Omertà in place, no one would talk about anything, but the Burn’s library in Boston was able to persuade the ageing, once active terrorists that their testimony would be safe and would be useful for historical research, a shaky assertion that was proved wrong. But the people that spoke on tape were bitter about the way things had turned out and weren’t motivated only by historical reasons.

Firstly the “dissapearance” of Jean McConville: there were very few “disappearances” during the troubles, the Provisionals preferring leaving the corpses in view for intimidation. McConville, a widowed mother of ten, living in the Divis flats, was suspected of being an informer. On What and to whom?
One of the things that the recordings made clear is that the Provisionals were themselves, as an organisation, riddled with informers.

The two key testimonies came firstly from Dolours Price, who was the leader of the group that bombed the Old Bailey based on her own analysis and insistance as the first woman to join the Provisionals:

It was a case study in strategic insanity:the Irish were blowing up their own people in a misguided attempt to hurt the English, and the English hardly even noticed. It bothered Price. ‘This is half their war’ she would say to Wee Pat McClure, the head of the Unknowns, as they sat around call houses between operations. ‘Only half of it is our war. The other half is their war, and some of it should be fought on their territory’. She became convinced that a short sharp shock – an incursion into the heart of the Empire – would be more effective than twenty car bombs in any part of the North of Ireland’.

And secondly from Brendan Hughes, the officer commanding D company of the Provisionals, whose direct commander was Adams and who had been in Long Kesh together, Adams and Hughes were close as when he turned up in a flat afterHughes had been shot:

That Adams had come personally meant a great deal to Hughes, because it was risky for him to do so. According to the Special Branch of the RUC, Adams had been commander of the Ballymurphy unit of the Provisionals, and later became the officer commanding of the Belfast brigade – the top IRA man in the city. He was a marked man, more wanted by the authorities than even Hughes.

For anyone who recognises the current trend for implausible denial, ‘ if I don’t admit to it…..’ Putin’s habitual defence for instance, Adams’ defence to accusations of his implication in the Provisionals will come as no surprise:

Gerry Adams, meanwhile, angrily contested Price’s claim, noting that she was a ‘long-standing opponent of Sinn Féin and the peace process’. Price was suffering from ‘trauma’, Adams pointed out, adding, ‘there obviously are issues she has to find closure on for herself.’ It was the same criticism Adams had levelled at Hughes, who he characterised as having ‘his issues and difficulties’.

Lives up to the hype.

First published in English by William Collins in 2018

Négar Djavadi ‘Arène’

Sam’s brain thinks ahead at full speed. It’s out of the question for her to give him this chance, then have to watch his devilish efficient demonstration of how to do it, dropping a little comment on the way such as: « at one time or another you have to know how to get things done. We’re not going to wake him up softly with a cup of tea! » a phrase she could quickly translate as « what the fuck are you up to, Baydar, stood there whispering sweet nothings in his ear! »***

This is Négar Djavadi’s second book, Arène, as in the Arena in Ancient Rome. The real leading role in this book is the forgotten Eastern arrondissements of Paris, centred here on Belleville, where the different housing estates have been forgotten by the politicians, they are poor, with an economy based on drug trafficking and tit for tat killings between the young gang members of the different estates, added to this are the many migrants sleeping in the streets.

A young man dies on the bank of a canal and the powder keg explodes.

Djavadi tells this story through a huge cast of characters, firstly from the point of view of Benjamin Grossman, in charge of the sector « France » of BeCurrent, the primary competitor of Netflix, back from Los Angeles and visiting his childhood home in one of these housing estates. In between being a person of major importance for the local entertainment industry and being unknown on the streets of Belleville, and his culture shock coming back to this from LA. Grossman may be responsible for the death, having pushed the young man, thinking he had stolen Grossman’s phone, the man, Issa Zeitounï, falls awkwardly and bangs his head before getting up and walking away.

There is the young policewoman Baydar, of Turkish origin, already disowned by her family for joining the police, illustrated in the opening quote, under pressure from her macho team mate, Dalloz and who finds Issa by the banks of the canal, thinks he is a drugged migrant, shakes him and then ceding to the pressure, kicking him to try to get a response, before discovering he is dead.

There is Camille a young sixth form student and video activist who films Baydar and edits her video to show the police not even leaving the local people alone when they are dead but kicking their corpses:

Like everyone on Twitter, Camille is after popularity and followers. Anyone who would sign up to a social network without these aims would be relegated to being a third class citizen, an”Invisible”, a “Beggar”, condemned to a long stay in the hold with the rats and other forgotten people.***

And then there is Stéphane Jahanguir Sharif, an observer of society, as his Twitter handle goes, who’s part in the drama is to use his followers to whip up dissent, and his trusted supporters on the ground to lead the violence.

There wouldn’t be a story without a tragedy as things get out of hand, there will be winners and losers but few will be indifferent, and of course the local politician tries to shine.

There were a lot of characters, requiring concentration to follow all of the strands of this story, looking at how little it can take in our on line society to whip up violence. I would read this book again.

First Published in French by Levi in 2020.

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Le cerveau de Sam anticipe à toute vitesse. Hors de question qu’elle lui laisse cette opportunité, puis le regarde achever sa démonstration, redoutablement efficace, balançant au passage une petite phrase du genre: « À un moment, il faut savoir en découdre. On va pas se l’jouer pensionnat chic, réveil en douceur et compagnie! » Phrase au qu’elle se dépêcherait de traduire par: « qu’est-ce que tu fous, Baydar, plantée là, à lui susurrer des petits mots doux à l’oreille! »

Comme tout le monde sur Twitter, Camille court après la popularité et les followers. D’ailleurs, s’inscrire sur un réseau social sans set objectif vous reléguerait très vite au rang de citoyen de troisième classe, un Invisible, un Gueux, condamné à un séjour prolongé dans la cale parmi les rats et les autre oubliés.

Anne Tyler “French Braid”

How did anyone really know what was really going in their kids lives. He had long ago accepted that his experience of fatherhood was not what he used to envision, the girls and he got along thank heaven but girls were more a mother’s business and so he couldn’t take much credit for that. David on the other hand, for some reason he and David had never seemed quite in step with each other.

French Braid begins with an everyday story of girl invited to meet boy’s family. Nothing out of the ordinary here, just life made up of many small details, As Serena and James head back to Baltimore by train Serena glances across the station and sees a man that makes her think of her cousin Nicolas, but how could she not recognise him?

She happened to notice a young man in a suit who had paused to let the cart roll past him. “Oh,” she said. James looked up from his phone. “Hmm?” “I think that might be my cousin,” she said in an undertone. “Where?” “That guy in the suit.” “You think it’s your cousin?” “I’m not really sure.” They studied the man. He seemed older than they were, but not by much. (It might just have been the suit.) ….. “It might be my cousin Nicholas,” Serena said. “Maybe he just resembles Nicholas,” James said. “Seems to me if it was really him, you could say for certain.” “Well, it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other,” Serena said. “He’s my mom’s brother David’s son; they live up here in Philly.”

Anne Tyler then takes us back in time through two generations of Serena’s family, to her grandparents and their young children and we observe their lives in much the same way as we had seen Serena’s first meeting with James’s parents, through the small details and we learn to see the impact of seemingly small events on people’s lives, for instance on Serena’s grandfather Robin’s reflection late in his life, illustrated by the opening quote.

Hidden in the various interactions is a day when Nicolas’s father, David, was a young boy which could be seen as one of many moments leading to his father’s reflections later in life, here is a quote as Mercy, Serena’s grand mother wanted time for herself and Robin takes responsibility for his son, but maybe in the sixties fathers didn’t understand so easily the complexities of their sons as Robin has a sink or swim view of learning to swim:

She was no stranger to water, but after a few yards or so she stopped swimming and stood up. “Come on out” Robin called to her but she said “I don’t want to get my hair wet” she had the kind of hair that took forever to dry, thick, wavy with ringlets spilling from a chignon piled high on top of her head. She said “I was thinking, I might go and fetch my sketch pad and take a little walk in the woods, can you keep an eye on David?” “Sure thing” Robin said, I’ll teach him how to swim”.

My first experience of Anne Tyler’s writing didn’t disappoint, slow moving family drama with points of denial, like many families.

First published in English by Knopf in 2022

Percival Everett ‘The Trees’

Delroy jumped a little when Brady appeared behind him. “Good Lord Almighty!” Brady said. “Goddamn! Is that Junior Junior?”
“I think so,” Delroy said. “Any idea who the nigger is?”
“None.”
“What a mess,” Brady said. “Lord, Lordy, Lord, Lord, Jesus. Looky at that. His balls ain’t on him!”

“I see that.” “I think they’re in the nigger’s hand,” Brady said. “You’re right.” Delroy leaned in for a closer look.

“Don’t touch nothing. Don’t touch a gawddamn thing. We got ourselves some kind of crime here. Lordy.”

The book shortlisted for the Booker this year, didn’t pull be in by the title and I didn’t recognise Percival Everett, but what a book! How to start describing it?

The book begins in Money Mississippi, with two gruesome murders in short succession, both related. First there’s Junior Junior found dead by two local policemen Brady and Delroy as described in the opening quote. The “person of colour“, hope I got that right, found in the same room as Junior Junior is clearly well and truly dead, with his head smashed in, both bodies are taken to the local morgue. Soon after the coloured persons body is found to be missing, no longer in the morgue drawer.

Then the book takes on a surreal form when the same corpse is found next to Junior Junior’s brother in law, Wheat’s dead body with Wheat’s “nuts” in his hand. As each of the family and the policemen’s characters are drawn, we find ourselves in a caricature of poor white people in small town Mississippi (or I hope it’s a caricature). From Wheat’s wife, Charlene, known even to her young kids by her CB handle, Hot Mama Yeller to the mortician Rev doctor Fondle addressing a KKK meeting:

We got ourselves a situation white brothers, I’m afraid what we’re looking at is a real nigger uprising two of our own brothers lay dead and the killing nigger is on the goddamn loose.

Then the second layer of the book sets in as 2 MBI agents (yes , Mississippi bureau of investigation), both black are sent to investigate, and are not exactly welcome and the FBI sends a female black agent and together are able to realise that the locals still think it’s the 1930’s.

We are clearly in “Strange Fruit” country where a very old lady has kept a record of the more than 7000 negroes Lynched in the south with less than 1% of the people involved being questioned and much less being convicted, this is proposed by any definition as being a genocide, where the only way to remember them is to keep saying their names.

Then the killings get out of hand as more and more white people are killed. Even Trump has a cameo appearance.

An excellent idea to mix a murder mystery, farce and difficult to swallow facts.

First published in English by Influx Press in 2022