Book Around the Corner

Malamute by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent. (2021) Not available in English.

Jean-Paul Didierlaurent is better known for his book The Reader on the 6.27 which I haven’t read. It sounds like a book about books and a rather feel-good novel. Malamute has nothing to do with that brand of literature and veers towards Noir and Nature Writing.

We’re in November, at the beginning of the ski season in La Voljoux, in the Vosges mountains. Germain Grosdemanges is in his eighties, a widower who lives in a remote farm. He’s getting older and his only daughter Françoise worries about him. She lives near Paris and can’t visit him very often. She strikes a deal with Basile, her cousin’s son. Basile is a snow groomer who will work in La Voljoux during the upcoming ski season.

The arrangement is mutually beneficial: Basile can stay rent-free at the farm if he keeps an eye on Germain and does a bit of housework. Peace of mind for Françoise. Savings for a broke seasonal worker. Basile accepts and Germain surrenders to Françoise’s command because it keeps the looming nursing home at bay.

Meanwhile Emmanuelle settles in the farm near Germain’s; she’s also a snow-grooming agent. Her father died a few months ago and she inherited that farm that she’d never heard of. Her parents were Slovak emigrants who came to the village in 1976. Her father Dragan wanted to be a musher and drive tourists around on his sleigh. Their business never took off, partly due to the hostility of the villagers. Her parents left their farm abruptly and never came back to La Voljoux. They were miserable after that and now Emmanuelle wants to know what happened.

She comes to introduce herself to Germain, who recognizes her mother in her. He’s unwilling to tell what happened all those years ago. Something he keeps as a very well-guarded secret. Something he’s ashamed of.

A snowstorm arrives and disrupts the village’s quiet life. Emmanuelle and Basile work in the same snow-grooming team and work very hard on the slopes but also driving snow-plows to clear the roads. Germain and them are forced to get closer. Secrets resurface…

Malamute by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent belongs to Nature Writing. It could be a Gallmeister book.

Germain used to work as a woodcutter and loves the forest and trees in general. He has a collection of woodcuts and he loves imagining what these trees went through. He looks at them as witnesses of times long gone. To him, they are pieces of History. He has this grumpy-old-man vibe that you meet in books by American Nature Writing authors.

The mountains and the woods surrounding La Voljoux are characters in themselves, they are part of the plot. The snowfalls lock Germain, Basile and Emmanuelle in the farm. They can go out because they drive snowplows, otherwise, they’d be totally snowed in. The impact of the heavy snowfalls moves the story forward. La Voljoux is a little village in the mountains, people live there and everyone knows everyone’s business. Its survival depends on the success of the ski season and the weather plays an important role in the villagers’ lives and how the events unfold.

Didierlaurent writes a very atmospheric book that rings true. His characters have names that are typical from the Vosges region. He’s from the area and it seeps through his style, giving the book an authentic flavor and an incredible sense of place. Despite the historical snow storm of the book, it made me want to go hiking in the Vosges mountains. It’s only a few hours away from Lyon, so who knows?…

Malamute has not been translated into English but The Reader on the 6.27 and its sequel The Rest of their Lives have been translated by Ros Schwartz. Malamute was published in 2021, let’s hope that Ros Schwartz is working on it too.

Highly recommended. And that was another very good choice by Camille, my Kube libraire.