Discovering Daniel Pennac

Ooh la la, translations of wonderful French books are popping up more and more and, as Sister Mary pointed out on Monday, they can't be published quickly enough! I can't even recall when or how it was that I recently sighted a series and author that piqued my interest. The author is ex-school teacher Daniel Pennac. When I checked him out and found that he was born in Casablanca, traveled extensively and had varied careers from cab driver to woodcutter, I was hooked. It took me a while to get a copy of his first book, The Scapegoat. On Amazon US, it costs a fortune ($83 new, $33 used!) but I finally prevailed. I am very glad I did.

It’s not that you won or lost-
But where you placed the blame
Misquote of Henry Grant, sportswriter

Benjamin Malaussène works at a retail giant emporium known as The Store. His official title is Quality Controller, but his daily grind consists of taking the flack for everything that goes wrong with any item purchased at the store. He has turned his work into the fine art of convincing irate customers that no matter how bad an experience a shopper may have had with their faulty purchases, there is always someone suffering even more. Usually, this is Benjamin himself and the disgruntled complainers often leave apologizing for any inconvenience they may have caused.

Belleville

Although Benjamin detests his competence as official scapegoat, he needs the job because he is taking care of four of his siblings left behind by their fly-by-night mother, each of whom has very endearing qualities. But, while at work, he has had the misfortune of being close to where several apparent terrorist bombs have detonated, causing minimal damage but killing a series of old people who are an assortment of World War II survivors.

It is not long before the fickle finger of fate seems to be pointed directly at Benjamin, since he was in close proximity to all the explosions. However, there are other things of more importance on Benjamin's mind, since he and Julie, an investigative reporter, have begun to dig up an even deeper mystery that might be more sordid and foul than anyone expects.

Daniel Pennac

The Scapegoat (translated from the French by Ian Monk, Harvill Press, 1998) is the first of Daniel Pennac's Belleville Quartet, written around Benjamin Malaussène, the professional scapegoat. It takes place in a neighborhood in Paris that was once a working-class district. Today, Belleville is a colorful, multi-ethnic neighborhood that has not changed a great deal because Belleville was ignored, perhaps spared, during much of the architectural modernization efforts of the 60s and 70s. Belleville is as much a character in Pennac's stories as are the unusual personalities who populate his quartet. Pennac wrote these books in the late 1980s and it was a decade later that they were translated and published in the UK.

These books have acquired somewhat of a cult status in Europe. They seem to be surfacing so much later in the US perhaps because, as some critics suggest, Americans don't appreciate the very British tenor of the translations. I had no problems with them.

The strength of this first book lies more with Pennac's fantastic imagination than with the mystery. The plot and the conclusion are good, but most of the fun is in what happens around them. And this book is fun. Pennac is a master at wordplay and I always appreciate that.

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
Somehow this is all going to be my fault.
Misquote from Sir Walter Scott

In the next of the series, The Fairy Gunmother, Benjamin is now working in the capacity of official Literary Director (unofficial scapegoat) for Vendetta Press. He has taken a prolonged leave of absence because there have been changes in his life, as well as in Belleville. The neighborhood is in an uproar because more than a half-dozen elderly grannies have been found with their wrinkled throats slit. And then, on a cold winter's night when police Inspector Vanini is hanging out on a street corner looking for suspicious anti-ancients, he spies an elderly lady beginning to slip on a sheet of black ice:

Then the old dear's shawl suddenly spread out, like a bat taking off, and everything came to a standstill. She'd lost her balance. Then she got it back again. The disappointed blond [Vanini] cursed between his teeth. Watching people fall flat on their faces always made him laugh. That was one of the nasty things about this blond head. Though it looked as neat and clean as can be from the outside, with its dense, evenly barbered crewcut. But its owner didn't like oldsters much. He found them a bit disgusting.

But then the tables are turned and the old lady, suspecting a mugging as Vanini crept up on her, turned and fired on him point blank. She was a dead shot. Of course, there are no witnesses––or at least ones who will talk––so the situation in the streets becomes very tense. It seems that the grannies are arming themselves.

Into this edgy situation, along with a generous helping of suspects, full-fledged criminals, and heavy-handed cops, stumble Benjamin Malaussène and his journalist love, Julie. Julie has been working on a case involving a new spate of drug addictions. This time, the victims are all among the wrinklies. They are ideal targets for the dealers, because they are the most vulnerable. They are weak, feeble, tired, sick, lonely and, many times, alone. Add to this, they have some money from their pensions.

Julie has been rescuing some of these desperate oldsters and is hiding them at the Malaussène home because she fears they are in danger. Benjamin and his family of siblings and epileptic dog incorporate four old men as grandfathers and are nursing them back to health. Julie herself has not been seen for a while. She is hunting for the evil that lurks in the hearts of some powerful men, and Benjamin fears for her safety. The problem is Benjamin himself seems to be in the police's spotlight as an ideal murderer and drug dealer. Is he a saint or a sinner?

This story is filled with fascinating characters into whom Pennac breathes the spark of life. There is the Pastor, who is a policeman who can get anyone to confess his crimes with his secret technique. And there is Widow Ho, an elderly Vietnamese woman who tries and tries to get attacked and robbed, but she has more protectors that she can count. She is a lot more than any one thinks she is.

Benjamin's siblings are also fleshed out and seem very real. The underlying themes of renovation of aging neighborhoods, racism and the care of the elderly play a role in the plot, and while there are many episodes of absurdity, the story's message is deadly serious.

The story meanders a bit after the exciting beginning, but then my imagination was captured and I was on the edge of my seat for a very suspenseful dénouement. Nonetheless, I found a great deal of humor in the book which is always a plus.

Third in the series is Write to Kill, which I hope to read as soon as the postman can bring it. There are not any Pennac books in my local library. I hope this omission will be rectified.

A Very French Cinderella Story: Review of Katherine Pancol's The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles

The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles by Katherine Pancol

I took a break from mysteries with an entertaining book I think you might enjoy. I'll confess, it's probably classifiable as "chick lit," but since it's French, maybe we can think of it as chic lit.

The cheerful colors of the cover make it perfect for these cold days

Katherine Pancol's "Joséphine" trilogy sold like Paris street-vendor crèpes in France, and now the first of the three books has been translated into English. The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles introduces us to ugly duckling Joséphine Cortès, who has always been treated dismissively by her snobbish and stylish mother, Henriette, and by her sister, chic society wife, Iris.

Joséphine is a poorly-paid history researcher trying to support her family, including her two daughters, Zoé and Hortense. Her husband, Antoine, had been a high-flying executive until he was laid off after his company was acquired by an American firm. Now he's thinks he's too good to take a normal job, and after a year of unemployment, making ends meet is getting trés difficile. After Joséphine discovers Antoine's been having an affair with a hairdresser, she boots him out and he leaves with the mistress, Mylène, to manage an African crocodile farm.

Joséphine is really in the soup now. Not just financially, but with the girls. Zoé is a sweetheart, but the barely-into-her-teens Hortense is your worst nightmare of a daughter. She's spiteful and dismissive to her mother, dresses in revealing clothes and, now that puberty has hit, she uses her looks to entice grown men––the kind with fast cars and money to spend on her––into her web.

The answer––at least to the financial problems––comes out of left field. Iris, a sharp-elbowed competitor among Parisian ladies who lunch, has been feeling like the spotlight isn't highlighting her enough, so she announces to her set that she's writing a historical novel. The spotlight swivels to her, alright, but it's all little too hot with expectation when a publisher acquaintance expresses keen interest. Iris's brainstorm solution is for Joséphine to use her 12th-century historical knowledge to write the novel, which will be credited to Iris, and Iris will slip the proceeds to Joséphine.

It's a workable plan until the novel becomes a runaway success and word of the book's real provenance starts to leak out. This description makes it sound like a straightforward story, but there is a huge cast of supporting characters who provide their own subplots, like Joséphine's stepfather, Marcel, who runs a successful home goods business and takes refuge from his ice queen wife, Henriette, with his voluptuous and warm-hearted secretary; Joséphine's neighbor and friend Shirley, who has a mysterious past in England; Hortense and her cold-blooded tactics; Antoine and Mylène's adventures on the crocodile farm; and nearly a dozen others. Even Joséphine's novel's heroine, Florine, is a character in this book––and one with a life that would put any soap opera to shame.

When I picked up this book, I was a little nervous about Joséphine's character, because downtrodden characters in books are often so passive that I want to shake them and tell them to grow a backbone. But Joséphine isn't like that. She does stands up for herself, at least verbally, and has some very choice words for both Antoine and her mother. I cheered for her all through the book, and looked forward to seeing the meanies get their comeuppance.

This is a fast-paced, funny and poignant story and, as with the best stories, I couldn't wait to find out what happens next. There were a couple of weak points, like young contemporary children being interested in Marlon Brando and John Lennon, and one subplot that strains credulity, but these were easy to forgive.

The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (translated from the French by William Rodarmor and Helen Dickinson, Penguin, 2013) is perfect for a movie. The Cinderella-ish plot is tailor-made for the screen. Of course, if Hollywood gets to it, Joséphine will be played by somebody like Julia Ormond and you'll only know she's an ugly duckling because she won't be wearing eyeliner or Hermès scarves. But I can live with that.

I wonder how long it will take before we see English translations of the other two books in the trilogy. The second is called La Valse Lente des Tortues (The Slow Waltz of Turtles) and involves a serial killer striking Joséphine's neighborhood, while the third, Les Écureuils de Central Park Sont Tristes le Lundi (Central Park's Squirrels Are Sad on Mondays), has Joséphine battling writer's block until she finds a 1960s diary about a young man who is mesmerized by Cary Grant when Grant is in Paris filming Charade with Audrey Hepburn. I'll look forward to reading these, which have also been huge bestsellers in France. Not to mention that they sound almost like crime fiction, not just chick/chic lit.


















Note: Versions of this review may appear on other reviewing sites, such as Amazon and goodreads, under my usernames there.

Mesmerism and Murder: Review of Steven Levingston's Little Demon in the City of Light

Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris by Steven Levingston

In the late 18th century, a German physician named Franz Mesmer used what he initially called "animal magnetism" to hypnotize subjects in order, presumably, to cure their physical and emotional ills.Throughout the following century, hypnotism spread like wildfire through the clinics and drawing rooms of fashionable Europe and North America; part parlor game, part pure charlatanism, and part science. According to the literature of the period, quite ordinary people could easily learn the technique and practice it on their friends, to the amazement and occasional embarrassment of their subjects.

By the 1880s, there were two major reputable schools of thought on the topic. In Paris, the famous neurologist Jenan-Martin Charcot, whose students included the young Sigmund Freud, associated the ability to be hypnotized with hysteria, a mental instability he observed and treated particularly in women. He did not believe, however, that anyone could be coerced to extreme or immoral behavior under hypnotism. Jules Liégeois of the Nancy school had experimented extensively with hypnotism and firmly believed that the personal will of the subject could be completely submerged and directed by the hypnotist. While this view offered startling unpleasant perspectives to religions and the legal system, it had been tested in court only once. In 1879, a dentist had been convicted of rape upon a hypnotized patient, whose helplessness and lack of free will was accepted by the court.

The Belle Epoque period in France paralleled the Gilded Age in the United States, and was every bit as garish. Painters, playwrights, and scientists were producing new sensations every day, even as the seedy, sexy Victorian period grudgingly yielded to the more refined Edwardian Age. In 1889, Paris hosted the largest exhibition ever produced. Mr. Eiffel's marvelous tower (the tallest structure in the world) loomed over the Exhibition and the vast glass Hall of Machines was over four football fields in length.

Into this Parisian stew of lavish sensationalism arrived young Gabrielle Bompard, fleeing from an unhappy home. Her mother had died when she was only five, and her governess was installed in her father's bed even before her mother was buried. Gabrielle had been sent away; first to live with an uncle, then to a succession of convent schools, from all of which she was sent home in disgrace. Neglected, undisciplined, attractive and sexually mature, she was ripe for trouble.

In Paris, she soon ran out of money and became the mistress of businessman and con man Michael Eyraud. Despite his wife and children at home, Eyraud proudly escorted his new young mistress about town. Being very easily hypnotized, Gabrielle provided a reliable bit of amusement in the salons of the jaded city. When Eyraud lost his job for embezzling funds, the pair needed cash, and quickly. Whose idea it was to entrap and rob their wealthy acquaintance Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé is not clear, but on the evening of July 26, 1889, Gabrielle invited Gouffé to visit her rooms. She and Eyraud had laid their plans carefully; installing a pulley to hang their victim and purchasing a large trunk in London to hold the body. But the pulley came loose, and Eyraud was forced to strangle their victim, who the couple had assumed to be carrying a large sum of money. Afterwards, the couple loaded Gouffé's body into a large trunk that they had shipped with them when they fled the city. They dumped the body in a river, and broke up and discarded the trunk farther downstream before hiding out temporarily with Eyraud's brother in Marseille.

It took months and a second autopsy before the stinking corpse pulled from the river was positively identified as Gouffé's. Newly appointed Sûreté chief Marie-François Goron and his staff pursued the criminals for many months over three continents, always barely missing them, before Gabrielle turned up at the Sûreté with her new wealthy lover––another of Eyraud's intended victims. Gabrielle claimed that she had been hypnotized by Eyraud and forced to aid him in the crime. Eyraud was finally captured in Cuba, and brought home to face trial.

The trial was an international sensation, and the French system of justice quite an eye-opener to me. The judge was unabashedly biased in his opening to the jury (this is permitted.) The co-conspirators were tried together, and were permitted to shout out to the court or each other directly during testimony. Gabrielle had been examined by a number of hypnotism experts appointed by the court, but a specialist proposed by the defense was not even permitted to talk to her. There appeared to be no public doubt about Eyraud's guilt, but much about Gabrielle's, who had courted public favor for months before his capture. By US legal standards, it was a circus, not a trial, and newspapers around the world loved it.

If you enjoyed Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, you will very likely enjoy this book, which is also the story of a true crime set in a major city during glamorous and hectic times. It is told in a factual rather than a sensational style, but is by no means dry. Little Demon in the City of Light has no need of added drama; the incredible facts of the case, the extended manhunt, and the dramatic courtroom scenes need no embellishment. Was Gabrielle in fact hypnotized by her lover, as she claimed, during the commission of the murder? If so, to what extent did that erode her free will and affect her complicity? What effect did––or should––her dismal upbringing and circumstances have on determining her responsibility? The author carefully refrains from sharing his opinions, leaving it to the reader to decide. There are easily half a dozen points in this book stimulating enough to engage a book discussion group. Highly recommended!

Note: I received a free advanced readers' copy of Little Demon in the City of Light, which will be released in the US on February 25, 2014 by Doubleday. Similar reviews may appear on various sites under my user names there.

Here's to You, Dad

A new tie. Hand-lettered cards. Blueberry pancakes served in bed. Yep, it's Father's Day today.

I make no accusations, but my daughter's flu is well timed. I'll take her place in the obligatory Father's Day golf game with her dad; Dear Hubby's tact will get a lot of exercise. After dinner, we'll grab bowls of popcorn and watch the 1944 movie Laura, in which a homicide detective falls for the woman whose murder he's investigating.

Throughout the day, my thoughts will drift to my own dad. We were close and shared a love of dogs, horses, wildlife, baseball, and reading. When I contemplate the books below, his voice is in my ears.

"Let's practice staying out of trouble." Compared to Adrian McKinty's Michael Forsythe, I need practice getting into trouble.

Adrian McKinty: Dead I Well May Be (2003). A vengeance-filled tale confided by Michael, a young thug who reluctantly flees the Troubles of Belfast in 1992 for New York City, where his fighting skills and cool head come in handy against Dominicans encroaching on the drug turf of Irish gangster Darkey White. All goes swimmingly until Michael can't stay away from Bridget, White's girl. White does something about this, forcing Michael to do something about that. This great series debut is darker and more violent than Dennis Lehane's Depression-era mobsters book, Live by Night (see here for review).

"She looks like she's been dragged through the hedge backwards." I'm sure Deon Meyer's Emma le Roux feels that way, too.

Deon Meyer: Blood Safari (2009). A tense standalone thriller, set primarily in South Africa's wildlife preserves, exploring that country's contemporary social issues and political history. Narrator Lemmer is a tough professional bodyguard who's never (1) lost a client, or (2) become personally involved with one. His record is challenged when he's hired by Emma, a Cape Town ad consultant recently targeted by violence, as she investigates the identity of a man wanted for the murder of four poachers. She thinks it could be her brother Jacobus, who disappeared from Kruger National Park 20 years ago. Writer Meyer's exotic landscape is populated by strong characters, vividly described.

"I'm not sleeping; I'm just resting my eyes." Take a gander at a Kafkaesque insomniac who has vanished from his Paris apartment.

Georges Perec: A Void (1994). You'll have to read it to believe it, but Frenchman Perec, a member of Oulipo, a group of mathematicians and writers who put constraints on their work to foster creativity, used no letter "e" in his 300-page book, and translator Gilbert Adair managed the same astonishing feat in English. This has amusing consequences, as the friends of missing Anton Vowl search for clues in his diary and notebooks, which contain e-less excerpts from Hamlet's soliloquies ("Living or not living: that is what I ask") and Poe ("Quoth that Black Bird, 'Not Again'"). Their investigations—interrupted by deaths—provide very satisfying entertainment for people who love words and highly original writing.

"You kids learn to get along." This was difficult for us war-mongering siblings; however, tattling or whining to Mom or Dad was discouraged by them and strictly taboo among us. If threatened by outside disaster, we sibs always closed ranks.

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō: The Makioka Sisters (Japan, serially in the 1940s; the USA, 1957). Set against the backdrop of the Second Sino-Japanese War and pending World War II, this is the poignant tale of a wealthy Osaka family who tries to find an acceptable husband for the third sister, as Japan modernizes and their finances and social standing decline. According to custom, Yukiko Makioka, a shy and obedient woman now age 30, must wed before the much more westernized and rebellious fourth sister, Taeko, who already has a secret, unsuitable boyfriend. Both Yukiko and Taeko live with second sister Sachiko, a very caring woman, and her husband; the oldest sister, Tsuroko, refuses to acknowledge her family's deteriorating fortunes while she and her husband move to Tokyo. Watching these sisters maneuver through these perilously changing times makes unforgettable reading.

My dad had so many admonitions for me involving my mother, ranging from "Don't talk back to your mother" to "Ask your mother," I hardly know which to choose. I'll settle for one of my favs, "We won't worry your mother about this." She would think this book very strange.

Sergio De La Pava: A Naked Singularity (self-published, 2008; Univ. of Chicago, 2012). At the center of this nearly 700-page book of difficult-to-convey bizarreness is the son of Colombian immigrants, our narrator Casi, a perfectionistic and obsessional New York public defender, who has never lost in court. Then he does, and a lawyer colleague has an interesting proposition. In a way, this novel is a compelling––albeit satiric––legal thriller, as Casi grasps at justice for his beleaguered clients and works on behalf of a mentally handicapped man sitting on death row in Alabama; yet, as if our justice system doesn't contain enough room for all the absurdity and existential angst, there are many, many digressions into philosophy, television, boxing, and who knows what all. I'm still reading it, but I can tell you this: it's an entertaining book for those who enjoy unconventional writing and unique voices. For fans of David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon et al. If it takes a straightforward plot to please you, look elsewhere for fun.

"I'm not going to tell you again." But he did. Certain issues came up over and over. Man, considering our incorrigible natures, my patient, yet determined dad did wonders with his kids.

S. T. Haymon: Ritual Murder (1982). Haymon's writing is always clear and elegant; she liked to juxtapose an odd murder and an alien setting, such as a stately home, a cathedral, or a museum. In this second series book, Haymon creates copy-cat victims separated by centuries when the mutilated body of Anglebury choirboy Arthur Cossey is found in the excavated tomb of Little St. Ulf, a 12th-century victim of ritual murder. Appealing Det. Inspector Ben Jurnet, who's preparing to marry Miriam and despises the nickname "Valentino," and his Welsh sergeant begin with the question of child molestation before their suspenseful investigation moves to issues of anti-Semitism and drug trafficking. Fans of Ruth Rendell, P. D. James, Batya Gur, Deborah Crombie, or Caroline Graham should check out the Jurnet series, which begins with Death and the Pregnant Virgin.

"Good night, sleep tight./ Don’t let the bedbugs bite./ And if they do/ Then take your shoe/ And knock 'em 'til/ They’re black and blue!" Dad, I wish you could have met hit woman Clara Rinker.

John Sandford: Mortal Prey (2002). We follow two story lines in a furious game of cat-and-mouse between a smart and lucky lawman and an obsessed, cold-eyed killer, who've met and like each other. After nearly killing Minneapolis cop Lucas Davenport in 1999's Certain Prey, Clara ends up in Mexico. A botched attempt to kill her is fatal to her fiancé and unborn child. Assuming the triggerman was hired by four old employers, a seething Clara sets on a rampage through St. Louis, Missouri. The FBI drags Lucas away from his preparations for a new job, house construction, and wedding to aid their agents there. This is the 13th book in Sandford's Prey series, but there's not a speck of staleness to be found. Gotta love Lucas, a warm and generous hulk, who sold the role-playing game he developed, and now drives a Porsche and indulges his taste in clothes. I rooted for Lucas and Clara, as I did for both cat and mouse in Owen Laukkanen's 2012 debut, The Professionals (see review here), featuring young kidnappers also pursued by a likable Minneapolis detective and the FBI.

"Did I raise you in a barn?" After I pointed out that, yes, I mostly was raised in our barn, my dad switched to, "Were you raised by wolves?" Got me there, Dad.

Joe R. Lansdale: The Bottoms (2000). Narrator Harry Crane, now in his 80s and confined to a nursing-home bed, looks back at Depression-era East Texas when he was 13, and he and sister Tom (short for Thomasina) roamed the woods, scaring each other with stories about the Goat Man. One day they discover the disfigured body of a young black woman hanging by wire from a tree in the creek area called "the Bottoms." Their father, Jacob—town barber and constable—attempts an investigation that encounters extreme racism and provokes violence. As more corpses come to light, Jacob takes to drink. The combination of innocent children coming of age in the South, a crime involving race, and a parent who tries to do the right thing is reminiscent of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, but this beautifully written book, which won an Edgar and was nominated for numerous other crime-fiction awards, is much more unsettling and violent than Lee's novel or Lansdale's Hap Collins/Leonard Pine books.

I hope fathers are enjoying a wonderful Father's Day with their families. If you're remembering your father, as I am mine, I hope your memories warm you.