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Quais du Polar 2024 : Day three!
Hello everyone, this is Day 3 of the Quais du Polar.
We got up early because we had tickets for the 9:15am Literary Cruise with Peter May. It’s like the Bateaux Mouche in Paris, but in Lyon on the Saône river. Quais du Polar has done these events for a few years now and it’s a way to discover the city from another angle and hear an author talk about his books.
Only this year two things happened. One is that we had so much rain in the last month that the Saône river is improper for cruises, the boats stayed at quay. Two, can you believe that both my friend and I left our phones at my house and were without our tickets and a means to contact the husbands for our lunch date.
My first thought was that we could manage the old way and live without our phones for a day but even if we could have hopped on the boat thanks to the list of the participants that Quais du Polar had, we couldn’t imagine how to keep in touche with the husbands.
So, no literary cruise for us and a trip back home to get the damned phones. (Notice how we don’t bother saying cell phones any longer? There are barely any other kind of phones anyway.)
That said we were back in time for the panel with Cosby and Lehane about the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. The journalist was excellent and the authors chatted about this anniversary, the topic of racism as it is central in their books. They went beyond talking about their books and shared personal experiences and beliefs with the audience. I felt privileged to be in the gorgeous Chapelle de la Trinité with them that morning.
Fun fact: they were rather pleased to discover they have their birthday on the same day, like Barak Obama as Lehane pointed out. As always, it struck me that these talks keep the authors on paths they relate to but keep them away from the usual book-promotion path. It’s refreshing.
I had a fascinating talk about American Southern literature with another reader on the pavement outside the chapel, and these delightful moments are a great part of the festival experience.
Thanks to our phones (!!), we had a wonderful lunch with the husbands in a nice and affordable restaurant. Yes, this is France and yes, sometimes clichés are clichés because they are true. Lyon is a top city for gastronomy and the festival included a Polar et gastronomie event. The theme was Brunch at Manchester because Tim Willocks and Caryl Ferey wrote a polar together for the festival.
We had a nice stroll on the quay of the Saône river and as you can see, we have our own bouquinistes on the banks of the Saône river, like the ones in Paris.
This is another view of Lyon from the Saône river’s bank.
Another fun fact: I saw that the city has reached a new level of refinement as far as recycling is concerned: dedicated trash cans for empty pizza boxes!
I don’t know if I should be happy that we try to recycle as much as we can or sad that we have so many pizza boxes that a special trash can is necessary. It sure amused me, though.
We attended a last talk about French rural noir. The authors were Jean-Charles Chapuzet, Manon Gauthier-Faure, Anne Percin and Nicko Tackian.
I haven’t read any of them but I’m sure interested in Anne Percin now. She wrote a book set on the Plateau de Millevaches in Limousin. Literally, it means the Thousandcows Plateau, really, that’s as close as to can get to a Montanan name in France.
And that’s all, folks, until next year! 😊 Thank you for reading about my three days at Quais du Polar.
If you’re curious about the festival and the authors, check out the festival’s website here. If you are interested in any of the conferences, they are available in replay here.
Quais du Polar 2024 : Day two!
Hello everyone, here’s my billet about Day Two à Quais du Polar. First of all, look at my new notebook for the panels, talks, interviews and whatnots!
Early morning I attended a panel entitled Between the map and the terrority, someone at Quais du Polar was quite facetious with titles this year.
The authors invited to this talk were Cécile Cabanac, Franck Bouysse, Joseph Macé-Scaron and Piergiorgio Pulixi. They were together in this because they all write books deeply rooted in the land they chose as a setting.
Cabanac wrote a book set in Basque country, Bouysse’s last book takes place in Montana, Macé-Scaron chose Roquebrune-sur-Argens in the Var department and Pulixi is from Sardinia.
I’ve only read a book by Pulixi and I remember that Sardinia was a character in the plot as its wilderness and culture were imbedded in the story. It’s a shame it hasn’t been translated into English but it’s avaible in Italian, French and Dutch. Incidentally, the epigraph of Pulixi’s new book is a quote by Bouysse as he is a writer he admires very much. He sang his praises.
It was interesting to hear them explain how they work to write these books, from unearthing local stories to exploring the aftermath of a crime in a village. Bouysse says he’s never been to Montana. I’ve been there and I can tell you that all the books I had read before my trip had not prepared me properly to the immensity of the landscapes. So, I’m a bit wary of his book but I’ll download a sample anyway.
After this talk my friend and I wandered a bit in the giant library in the Palais de la Bourse. There were a lot of people inside the Palais, where the heart of the festival beats. Around 11:30 am, the queue to get in was all around the building, and it is a big one. I don’t know how long the wait was but we were happy to escape and have a wonderful lazy apéro and lunch at a brasserie, near the Théâtre des Célestins. The weather gods were still on our side, even if it was windy.
We stayed put until it was time to enter into the theatre and attend Darkness, take my hand, a one-hour talk with Dennis Lehane. Christine Fermiot was impressed to interview him and I think that both of them were in awe of the setting. The theatre was full, up to the second balcony and this is what it looks like from the stage when it’s empty. Impressive, no?
The whole theatre was silent, listening to the interview and many thanks again to the wonderful interpreter, even Lehane’s accent is easy to understand. Lehane felt a bit stiff at the beginning but eventually opened up, talking about Boston, his upbringing, racism and his career as a writer.
A big crowd attended the festival on Saturday. It was crazy and what really struck is that us, book lovers are a very civilized crowd. What we see on social networks between book lovers transfers into real life: we are a gentle, polite and attentive crowd.
Lines may be long but people read books, chat with their friends or bond with strangers who are fellow readers. There’s a brotherhood and sisterhood of readers and I can’t help thinking that the world would be a better place if everyone got the reading bug. Now where are those pangolins when we need them.
A lovely walk later, we were at the City Hall again, browsing through books. Here’s the day’s book haul.
I loved the Peter Farris I read recently, I want to read another one. And after that interview, I had to get another Lehane. The Barton was included in my Quais du Polar membership. Has anyone read it?
I also snatched a few Gallmeister goodies, yay! Short stories by Trevanian, Johnson and my beloved Pete Fromm found a good home.
I was time for our next panel with Terry Hayes, Jo Nesbø and DOA. I haven’t read any books by them. There are so many Nesbøs that I don’t know which one I should start with. Any recommendation? The theme was about crooked investigators. What happens when your main character falls off the wagon? The journalist didn’t really keep the line of the debate but there were interesting interactions between the writers.
The next event was a first at the festival: a crime fiction quiz in the Grand Salon! The anchorman was the Belgian journalist Michel Dufranne.
The audience was split into five teams with a writer as a captain. Ours was Franck Thilliez and the others had Bernard Minier, Alexis Laipsker or Claire Favan. Forget what I wrote earlier: that crowd was very rowdy and noisy. And knowledgeable.
Despite the noise, the technical issues with the slideshow and the fact that Michel Dufranne speaks too fast, it was fun and it confirmed that my knowledge of crime fiction is tiny.
It was time to join the husbands for a Moroccan diner at what you’d call a hole-in-the-wall restaurant but the food and the service were great. A wonderful end to a great day and time to get some sleep for the next day of the festival.
Quais du Polar 2024 : Day one!
As mentioned in my previous billet, the crime fiction festival Quais du Polar was all over the city of Lyon from April 5th to April 7th. It was an exceptional edition for the festival 20th anniversary. 135 writers were here to meet 100 000 enthusiastic readers from Lyon and other places. It was a very civilized crowd despite the waiting lines and it was heartwarming to see so many young people in attendance. The weather cooperated, it was warm and dry. Yay!
It was a good weekend for the independent libraires who have the exclusivity on the sale of books at the festival. Quais du Polar reported that they did a turnover of 330 000 euros over the weekend.
So, what did I do on that first day?
Friday morning, I met a group of middle schoolers who were doing workshops as reporters. They had drawn up a few questions, I answered them and it was soon over. Cute kids, very polite and I felt ancient when they looked at me with round eyes when I told them I’d been going to the festival for something like ten years.
I met up with my good friend Isabelle who came for the weekend and we stayed in line half an hour until I could read S.A. Cosby and get my book signed. First purchase of the weekend, La colère, the French translation of Razorblade Tears. He was patient with his readers and willingly posed for a little picture.
He was sitting next to Gabino Iglesias who was in France for the first time and enjoying himself. I knew of him since David Joy sings his praises and he told me that indeed, Joy made the connection between him and Sonatine, his French publisher. And we have another Southern writer translated into French. I asked him to recommend me one of his book, the less graphic one, and I got Les Lamentations du coyote, the French translation of Coyote Song.
I had time to browse books at the giant librairie and I got Lightseekers by Femi Cayode and Dreadfulwater by Thomas King, a writer who inspired Craig Johnson.
At five, we attended a talk featuring Dennis Lehane, John Grisham, S.A. Cosby and Gabino Iglesias about the American presidential election. It was set up in the grand salon at the City Hall, the mayor made a speech (totally unnecessary, IMO) and the consul of the USA in Lyon introduced the authors. Incidentally, Lehane and Grisham had never met each other before. And Iglesias was like “Wow, I’m sharing the floor with Lehane and Grisham!”
As you can see on this picture, S.A. Cosby has a headset where an interpreter translates the questions of the journalist. They lend headsets to the public too and we are blessed with a wonderful simultaneous translation and it’s a luxury. I’ve seen the same interpreter for several years now and she’s very good. She won’t read this but I really thank her for the quality of her job at the festival.
As far as I’m concerned, this panel was a lesson in American accents. I’m good with Lehane and Grisham, ok with Texas and Iglesias and struggling with Cosby’s Southern accent. I needed the translator.
Then we rushed to our next activity: riddles at the museum! This was a first. We got a card, a highlighter and we had to highlight the word we found each time we solved a riddle, all of them written by different writers. Here’s one:
Each riddle was on an easel and we walked through the rooms of the museum. It was nice to be there after hours and it was fun to decipher the riddles. Many thanks to the writers who submitted their riddle, it was a nice gesture for the participants.
Once we completed the challenge – got a tote bag out of it – we went to a talk by Interpol about art trafficking, also at the museum. A carabinieri who works for Interpol explained how they try to track down stolen works of art. He also told us where we could download the Interpol app to check out if a work of art is on the stolen goods database and how we can use the app to register our work of art. It was interesting and kind of flattering to have such institution doing this conference.
It was something like 9pm when we went out of the museum, time to have diner in a brasserie, go home and crash. Day one’s book haul:
Quais du Polar 2024, let’s get ready!
Long time readers of this blog know that Quais du Polar in a crime fiction festival set in Lyon. This year, it’s the 20th anniversary of the festival and it will take place from April 5th to April 7th. Let’s hope the weather gods are with us and that rain will stay away.
Quais du Polar is a literary festival that expanded its horizons and now caters to anything related to crime fiction.
You’ll have the usual panels, talks with writers and book signing booths. But you’ll also get music-and-literature hours, literary cruises on the Saône river, crime fiction games in various places of the town, painting-and-literature tours at the art museum, visit of the school for police commissaires and their NICS lab, conferences done by judges and lawyers at the courthouse and crime fiction films at the Institut Lumière, where the cinema was invented. Each year, the festival has new ideas for entertainment and knowledge about crime and crime fiction. This year, there’s even a literary brunch.
Police and justice are also involved in the festival. Policemen, experts, judges, and lawyers talk about their work. They give us a glimpse of real crime solving and subsequent trials. Imagine that a team of CSI policemen have turned into playwrights, actors and director: they have created a theater play about CSI that shows how they work. It’s already sold out but I would have loved to see that.
There’s also a side festival for literature professionals who work around crime fiction. (publishers, translators…)
The program is out and the number of events you can attend is mind-blowing. 135 authors are invited and will participate to panels and book signings. Check them out here. Festival goers could book some events in advance and that’s what I did. I also checked out the program to outline what I’ll do during these three days. Beside buying books at the giant bookstore, of course. 😊
Here’s what I intend to do during these three days.
Friday.
At 11 am, I volunteered to be interviewed by middle school students. They’ll ask questions about my time at the festival. It should be fun.
At 5:30 pm, I hope I’ll get into the panel about the US presidential election. The writers involved in this discussion are S.A. Cosby, John Grisham, Gabino Iglesias and Dennis Lehane.
At 6:50 pm, I have ticket to play a “mystery game” at the art museum. Writers will be scattered in various rooms in the museum and we’ll have to solve the riddles that authors have written for us.
At 7:45 pm, my friend and I will attend a conference by specialists from Interpol who fight against art trafficking. It sounds fascinating.
Saturday
At 10 am, there’s a panel about the importance of places and the atmosphere of books. Franck Bouysse, Cécile Cabannac, Joseph Macé-Scaron and Piergiogio Pulixi will discuss how places become a character in their books.
At 2 pm, Dennis Lehane will give an interview at the beautiful Théâtre des Célestins.
At 4 pm, there’s a panel about French crime fiction from 2005 to 2024 with Hannelore Cayre, Didier Daeninckx, Nicolas Mathieu and Patrick Raynal.
At 6:45 pm, we got tickets to do a giant quiz about crime fiction. It’s going to be a fun competition between readers and writers. It sounds so fun!
Sunday
At 9:15 am, our day will start with a literary cruise with Peter May and we’ll learn more about his last book.
At 11:30 am, S.A. Cosby and Dennis Lehane will discuss racism in the USA, 60 years after the Civil Rights Act.
At 2 pm, Jérémy Claes, Abir Mukherjee, Maryla Szymiczkowa and Joe Thomas have a talk about how crime fiction handles hard topics such as racism, homophobia, and all kinds of extremisms.
At 3:30 pm, I’m also tempted by the panel about rural crime fiction in France with Jean-Charles Chapuzet, Manon Gauthier-Faure, Anne Percin and Niko Tackian. I don’t know any of these authors, so it could be a good opportunity to discover new writers.
That’s the plan for the weekend. Plans can change, we’ll see how it goes. There are tons of exciting events I won’t be able to attend and I’m like a kid in a candy store.
Great news, everything will be available on replay at the Quais du Polar website! So, if you want, you can attend vicariously through replays.
Meanwhile, I’m reading All Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby and I hope I’ll have time to read A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane before the festival starts.
Quais du Polar 2023 : friends, museum, boats, music, panels, books and more importantly, writers
Life got busy this week and I’m late with my billet about the 19th edition of the Quais du Polar festival. For newcomers to Book Around the Corner, it’s a literary festival dedicated to crime fiction and set in Lyon, France. This year it was from March 31st to April 2nd.
Despite the capricious April weather, the festival was a success, bringing 90 000 visitors and allowing independent bookstores to sell 290 000 euros worth of books in three days. See the avid readers milling around writers and bookstellers.
As usual, the organizers have surpassed themselves and there were a lot of events set in the city and its suburbs.
An investigation to explore the city on foot, buses with judiciary and police experts talking about their jobs, panels on bateaux-mouche, a CSI exhibition set up by the police themselves, lots of literary panels, music & literature events, visits to museums, crime fiction films in cinemas…All around real crime solving and justice and crime fiction.
And most of all, lots of writers from various countries, who seemed to really enjoy themselves.
I spent the weekend with a friend who came for the festival and had the chance to see Marina Sofia again. We were happy to spend time together. Thanks for the lovely time!
So, what did I do during these three days of festival?
Friday.
We went to the Modern Art Museum and visited the exhibition The Skin Is a Thin Container by Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, followed by a discussion with Johana Gustawsson, a French crime fiction writer married to a Swede. The talk was fascinating as she explained her family history and background, how it fuels her book stories and why she felt connected with the exhibition.
We had a grand time with her, as she was open about her family legacy and eager to exchange views with the attendance. I’ve never read her yet and I got one of her books, La Folly. I didn’t get a signed copy as the lines were too long.
That’s when we joined Marina Sofia in the great hall of the Chamber of Commerce where the independent bookstores are set with their guest authors. I managed to talk briefly with Peter Farris and William Boyle, both authors published by Gallmeister and tour budies (their word), as they are touring together in France for a few weeks.
We then met with friends in a restaurant to have drinks and appetizers. We had a wonderful time.
Saturday.
The day started with a bateau-mouche cruise with the artist Joann Sfar. This is a one hour cruise on the Saône river with a writer interviewed by a journalist.
It’s usually a lovely hour and Sfar talked about his latest BD, Riviera, about his hometown Nice. He’s friendly, funny and made me want to visit Nice again. Imagine that he went to the same lycée as Joseph Kessel and Romain Gary.
At the beginning of the afternoon, we attended a panel in the grand salon of the City Hall. The writers were Carlos Zanón who has taken over the Pepe Carvalho character, AK Turner, William Boyle and Elizabeth George.
It was supposed to be about the importance of their chosen town in their work, Madrid and Barcelone for Zanón, Camden Town in London for AK Turner, Gravesend in Brooklyn for Boyle and London for George. The journalist didn’t really manage to make them interact and it wasn’t the best panel I’ve ever attended.
The next panel at the Chapelle de la Trinité was excellent. It was about writing crime fiction set in remote places. The authors were Andrée Michaud and Roxane Bourchard, both from Québec and writing books set in the woods or in Gaspésie, Henri Loevenbruck who has created a fictional Channel Island, Thomas Mullen whose last book is set in a commune in Washington and RJ Ellory with his book in a mining town in Québec.
The atmosphere of this panel was relaxed and full of banter, thanks to Michel Dufranne, the journalist who led the discussion. His sense of humor backed up by Roxane Bouchard and Henri Loevenbruck’s own brand of fun made them crack jokes and had the attendance laughing.
I was impressed with Loevenbruck’s island, Blackmore: imagine that he created an island, built its scale model, imagined the lives and biographies of its 1000 inhabitants. And now, it’s an open source island, meaning that, provided that they ask his permission, any writer may use this setting to write their own book. Isn’t it unheard of?
Roxane Bouchard won the Quais du Polar prize for crime fiction for her novel Nous étions le sel de la mer. I really want to read it as I’ve been to Gaspésie and I’m curious about her book.
Sunday
First, an international panel at the Chapelle de la Trinité again, with Peter Farris (USA), Takashi Morita (Japan), Jacob Philipps (UK) and Jakub Szamalek (Poland). Farris and Szamalek write novels while Takashi Morita made Arsène Lupin into a manga and Philipps draws comics.
I’m curious about all their books, with a preference for the novels. I’ll wait for their paperback editions to read them, though. Le Présage by Peter Farris received glorious reviews by French journalists and libraires. It’s only available in French translation and I hope he’ll be published in his native language some day.
Szamalek’s book explores contemporary Poland and our digital world. It sounded fascinating. I don’t think it is available in English translation.
Then, we went to another cruise on the Saône river, this time with Javier Cercas and about his Terra Alta trilogy. I haven’t read it and it felt like I was really missing out. Have you read it?
We really felt that we had just shared a privileged moment with a great writer. He talked about his crime fiction trilogy, about writing, about literature. All in French.
And last but not least, we went to the opera where William Boyle had a rock and talk hour. First, a local rock band played a few songs and then Philippe Manche, a music journalist, interviewed Boyle about his love for rock. He used to be in a band and listens to a lot of rock music. We had a great time.
Between the various events we attended, we spent time at the bookstores, bought books, had them signed and talked a little with writers. I think I had the opportunity to talk to all the writers I wanted to see: Michèle Pedinielli, William Boyle, Peter Farris, Thomas Mullen, Victor del Arbol, Santiago Gamboa. All of them were friendly and it’s a great opportunity for readers.
They all seem to have a good time, spending time with their libraires, their publishing house, other writers and meeting readers. And people stay in line, eager to share their love of books, there’s a constant rush of people buying books, talking about books, reading books in lines or in corridors and sharing book recommendations. What a blast!
The outcome: an increase of my crime fiction TBR:
Next year will be their 20th anniversary of the festival, from April 7 to April 9-2024. See you next year for another Quais du Polar episode!
Quais du Polar 2022 : my festival.
In a previous billet, I had told you about the crime fiction festival Quais du Polar, set in Lyon for the 18th time.
The whole city was full of activities dedicated to the “polar” genre, a nickname for crime fiction in French. Even the weather was committed to the cause, the temperatures were polar, we even had snow! In April. In Lyon. Only Craig Johnson and the Icelandic writers felt at home with this, I imagine.
So, what did I do? I started with a rencontre musicale autour du jazz avec Jake Lamar, ie a musical experience around jazz.
Jake Lamar is an African-American from New York who’s lived in France for thirty years. His last book, Viper’s Dream is a crime fiction novel set in Harlem from 1936 to 1962 and the story revolves around jazz musicians and how the music changed in these years. Lamar is a fan of jazz, his book includes his playlist at the end and the jazz band Les Paons had prepared several songs that agreed with his writing. They were very good and the public had the chance to hear Lamar about his love for jazz and then discover his musical preferences with Les Paons. Wonderful experience.
One of my great friends was staying with us for the festival and we decided to attend a panel, la puissance noire des éléments, about wilderness or natural elements influencing a plot to the point that they are characters as much as the human characters.
As you can see on the picture, we were not in the wilderness for this panel but in the great room of the City Hall.
The writers invited to his panel were Olivier Norek, whose last book is set in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, David Joy and the importance of the Appalaches mountains in his work, Dolores Redondo who wrote a book about the hurricane Katrina and Marie Vingtras who wrote a novel set in Alaska. The journalist who hosted the debate was a bit prejudiced against Marie Vingtras who was the only one who had written a book about a place she’d never been to and where extreme weather plays a key part in the plot. To be honest, I’m not sure you can describe the cold in Alaska without experiencing it yourself. Unless you’re from British Columbia, Norway or Greenland. But for most French people who shiver when three snowflakes hit the ground and who live in a country that is mostly a garden, you need to have a hell of an imagination to write about Alaskan wilderness and be convincing. Maybe she’s that good.
Dolores Redondo decided to write about the Katrina tragedy because she was so shocked by what happened to people in New Orleans, how help took five days to come and rescue the poorer population who was stuck in town because they didn’t have the means to leave. She wrote a crime fiction book based on true facts.
That was the first time I heard David Joy speak and he intrigued me.
We managed to get into another panel, le Coeur noir des Appalaches. A lot of people were interested in this panel. The writers invited were John Woods, Kimi Cunningham Grant and David Joy. Covid happened and only David Joy was among us and we ended up spending an incredible hour with him.
Christine Ferniot from the culture magazine Télérama did an outstanding interview. She knew his books in-and-out and asked intelligent questions in such a calm and tranquil way that she pulled him out of his shell and made him talk about himself, his country, his Apalachees, the opioid pandemic around him, his love for literature.
We listened to him talk freely about his favorite writers, the importance of books and literature in his life and what matters the most to him. What outrages him. How he sees his mountain culture disappear. How he soaks up everything around him and feels more natural in the woods than in cities. Where his characters come from. His vision of the role of an artist and his quest to understand the human condition. What he wants to achieve with his books. We went off tracks and left the highway of book tours to meander in his inner literary garden.
We had a lovely and moving time with him and the great news is that you can have a lovely time with him too as all the conferences are available on the Quais du Polar website, on the replay part.
The next day, I went to a literary cruise with Olivier Norek.
We spend an hour with him and he talked about his new book, Dans les brumes de Capelans but also about himself, his experience as a policeman and how he writes his books. He’s a lot closer to an IT project manager than to Hemingway but it works! He was nice and friendly and being on the Saône river, seeing the city from the water added to the pleasure of this conference.
And of course, I spent time at the giant book fest and came back with several books:
The Kurkov is not a crime fiction novel but the blurb reminded me of Romain Gary. It just sounded like a book that he could have written. Obviously, I couldn’t resist. The English title is The Good Angel of Death. Have you read it?
The most frustrating part of the festival is that there are so many tempting panels that it’s hard to choose which one to attend. But everything is on the Quais du Polar website and now I just have to find some time to listen to other panels. (I’ll have to listen to the one called Marseille la noire).
According to newspapers, there were around 100 000 visitors at the festival and the independant bookstores sold for 250 000 euros of books in three days. A great success and see you next year from March 31st to April 2nd.
Quais du Polar 2022 : let’s get ready!
In two weeks, the crime fiction festival Quais du Polar will open. It’s a three-days celebration of crime fiction all over the city. The program is available on the Quais du Polar website and you can download it in pdf file if you’re interested.
The organization of the festival outdid themselves. There are the usual panels with several writers gathered around a theme, the giant bookstore in the gorgeous hall of the Chamber of Commerce, the mystery to solve in the city with a booklet of clues and questions. There are also crime escape games in several museums of the city.
Last year, the festival was in June, during COVID restrictions and they had to do things outdoors. They started the “literary cruises” on the Saône River, using the city’s bateaux-mouches. I went on the cruise with Florence Aubenas last year and this year, I’m very happy that I snatched a ticket for a literary cruise with Olivier Norek.
The Opera and Théâtre de l’Odéon are also involved and I booked a ticket for a Jazz & Literature event with Jake Lamar and Les Paons. I have wonderful memories of the one with James Sallis and Michael Connelly in a previous edition of the festival.
There are tons of talks with writers, opportunities to get signed books, chat with authors and discover the city of Lyon and sneak into places where you usually don’t go, like the grand room at the city hall. Almost everything is set in the city center withing walking distance and all events are free.
The festival has a broad approach of crime and works with the police and the justice to show how things work in real life. The police organize tours at the national school for commissaires de police and police officers set near Lyon. One year, you could do a tour at a police station with police officers to explain how they work. for a tour or have police officers explaining their jobs in police stations.
Last year, I attended a panel at the tribunal with judges and lawyers specialized in cold cases. This year, the festival goes further with bus tours with CSI, police and judicial experts. People you see on the screen and hope to never meet in real life, at least, not in their official capacity.
For the rest, I’m thrilled to spend time at the festival with friends and relatives. Let’s hope that the weather cooperates and it’ll be a fantastic weekend.
Last but not least, the authors without whom this festival wouldn’t exist. Here are the authors invited to the festival. The photos come from the official Quais du Polar website. I put a book sign on the writers I’ve already read (not many, actually). Let me know in the comments which ones you recommend.
Quais du Polar 2021 – Day #2
So, we’re Wednesday and until now, I didn’t have the time or energy to write about my second day at Quais du Polar on Sunday.
I had booked a seat at a Literary Cruise on the Saône River and the speaker was Florence Aubenas. She’s a famous French international reporter and a war reporter. She works at Le Monde. She was abducted in Iraq in 2005 and was kept prisoner during five months. She’s also well-known for going undercover as a cleaning lady in 2009. She wanted to live the life of underpaid blue-collar workers who work insecure jobs and report about it. It became a bestseller, Le Quai de Ouistreham and it has been made into a film by Emmanuel Carrère.
I was curious to hear her talk about her experience and about her last book, L’inconnu de la poste. She writes about an actual murder case that happened in Montréal-La-Cluse, in the Jura region. It’s a village of 3500 souls where the postmistress was murdered when she was on duty. Florence Aubenas was sent there to cover the story, got hooked up with the mystery around it and went there on and off during several years. She relates this story in her book.
It was a delightful hour as she’s fascinating to listen to. She’s very friendly, close to the public and we all listened with rapt attention. The setting was great too because we got a cruise on the river out of it and I think it was a great idea to organize a conference in such a neat setting.
After that, I had planned to visit the bookstores set up in tents on the bank of the Rhône River with a friend but the weather was not cooperating at all. We gave up and stayed put in a restaurant.
In the afternoon, we went to Noir in Lyon, a panel of writers who wrote crime fiction books set in Lyon. There was Coline Gatel for her second book set during La Belle Epoque, Gwenaël Bulteau for his novel set in the Croix-Rousse neighborhood during the Dreyfus Affair, Loulou Dedola, a BD author and François Médéline for two books, L’ange rouge and La sacrifiée du Vercors, set during WWII. This panel was a bit too messy for my tastes but I got to discover local writers.
I manage to spend some time at open bookstore, chatted a little with Dominique Sylvain and upon her recommendation, bought the fourth volume of her Lola & Ingrid series.
This festival was the first one I went to in this COVID times. They managed to reorganize it in the season (usually it’s the last weekend of March) and to relocate it in several places in the city. There was a lot less visitors than usual, probably because you had to book conferences in advance, because the weather was terrible and only a few international writers managed to come. But it felt good to go to a real book festival and hopefully, things will get back to normal in March 2022.
Many thanks to the staff and volunteers who gave their time and energy to celebrate crime fiction in Lyon.
Quais du Polar 2021 – Day One
For newcomers to my blog, Quais du Polar is a crime fiction festival set up in Lyon, France.
In 2020, the festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, it was scheduled early in April but was postponed to July 2nd to 4th. Since we still have some restrictions, the organization was changed to avoid large gathering in closed spaces.
The former big bookstore set up in the Chamber of Commerce…
has been replaced by an outdoor book market along the banks of the Rhône river and you have to book a ticket online to attend a conference.
The conferences are still organized at the City Hall, the Chamber of Commerce but new places have been added to the mix. Tomorrow, I’m going on a literary cruise on the Saône river.
I had two reservations for today and I have two for tomorrow. I’m happy with the two events I attended.
This morning, I went to the Paradis Noirs panel. (Black Paradise) The authors were David Vann (USA), Susanna Crossman (UK and France. I wish my English were as good as her French), Patrice Guirao (France) and Piergiorgio Pulixi (Italy).
These four writers have written a crime fiction novel set up in a paradisiac place, namely Sardinia, Tahiti, Komodo Island in Indonesia and an island in Brittany. The journalist asked relevant questions, monitored the speaking time properly and ideas bounced between the writers, showing the similarities between the books. The authors had enough time to share their ideas and obviously enjoyed interacting with each other. I was intrigued by their books:
- Komodo by David Vann,
- Les Disparus de Pukatapu by Patrice Guirao
- L’île sombre by Susanna Crossman
- L’île des âmes by Piergiorgio Pulixi
I love reading crime fiction in exotic settings, I’m afraid the TBR increased by three books after this panel.
Quais du Polar is about crime fiction but the local authorities involved with crime solving partner with the festival to share how things are done in real life. It helps that Lyon is the city where CSI was developed (with professor Lacassagne, see my billet about Les suppliciées du Rhône by Céline Gatel), where Interpol is located and is the third largest criminal court in France.
Once I visited the school for commissaires de police and saw how they teach the students how to work on a crime scene. Sometimes, a police station is open to the public and the officers share their quotidian.
This year, I went to a conference about cold cases at the court. The speakers were a public prosecutor, Jacques Dallest and two lawyers specialized in solving cold cases, Maître Seban and Maître Corinne Herrmann. The discussion was about cold cases and how the French justice doesn’t handle them well-enough. They shared anecdotes, explained why the judicial system is not as efficient as it should be and how to improve it. They say that they manage to reopen cases when families or journalists come to see them with something new. There’s also the possibility to reexamine clues with new forensic methods.
It was fascinating to be in the room where the hearings are done and listen to them talk about their work.
If you’re curious about Quais du Polar, check out their website here. You can also see the conferences in replay.
QDP Day #3 : The Unfaithful by Dominique Sylvain
The Unfaithful by Dominique Sylvain. (2018) Original French title: Les Infidèles
This is Day 3 of Marina’s and my Quais du Polar and I’m a little late with my billet. Isolation or not, I’m still quite busy. Before diving into The Unfaithful by Dominique Sylvain, let me share Guy’s review of The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre and Andrew’s review of In the Name of Truth by Viveca Sten. Manue thanks Guy and Andrew for your participation to our virtual Quais du Polar. It was great to have you on board.
Now let’s go back to Dominique Sylvain and her great novel.
Alice Kléber runs the website lovalibi.com: she sells stories and alibis to people who cheat on their spouse. She fabricates fictitious seminars, night work sessions and other professional emergencies for people who need an excuse not to go home. She makes up excuses and provides her client with material evidences of the thing they were supposed to be at.
Alice lives in an isolated home in Burgundy and suffers from the aftershock of an aggression. She doesn’t feel safe and uses a lot of coping mechanisms. She’s also convinced she’ll die young and soon and it impact her way-of-life and her decision making process. Alice is single and very fond of her niece Salomé, a young journalist who works for TV24. She sees her as her heir and she feels close to her.
Problem: Salomé is found dead in a trash can near the hotel La Licorne, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. Salomé had decided to do a reportage on these unfaithful people, to understand why they do it and buy services to her aunt. Did that lead to her death? Does her boss at TV24 know something? Or is it someone from her personal life?
Commandant Barnier and his partner lieutenant Maze are in charge of the case. All the people around Salomé are under investigation. Is the murderer lurking in the shadows, ready to strike again?
Said in a few words, the plot is quite simple but the book stands out. Its flavor comes from Sylvain’s brand of writing and her knack for characters. She imagines unique characters. They have their quirks but are not caricatures. They sound real and interesting with their unusual profession or their singular personal lives.
Alice is special, with her questionable business. She seems tough but she’s not that much and howls for love. Her niece is very important to her and she longs to have someone who loves her and has her back. But Salomé isn’t the innocent and punchy young woman that her aunt wants her to be.
Salomé’s boss, Alexandre Le Goff has an unusual family, with his wife Dorine and her slightly handicapped brother Valentin living with them. They draw a lot of attention. Valentin works as a janitor at TV24 and has a crush on Salomé.
Even the cops are special. Instead of two cops with clashing personalities who need to work together anyway, Dominique Sylvain imagined a partnership between two men who are attracted to each other. Maze is stunning and openly gay. Barnier is married with a son, his marriage is in a bad shape and he doesn’t understand his sudden fascination for his colleague.
Dominique Sylvain has a wonderful writing voice. I enjoyed her descriptions of Burgundy, the dialogues between the characters and her original images in her prose. I wanted to know who had killed Salomé and I enjoyed the ride, like a gourmet in a good restaurant.
Unfortunately, Les Infidèles is not available in English but another of her books, Passage du désir has been translated as The Dark Angel. I recommend it warmly and my billet is here.
PS: Dominique Sylvain is from Lorraine and it slips into her writing when she says :
“Elle agrippe Alexandre aux épaules et le secoue comme s’il était un mirabellier plein de mirabelles bonnes à manger”.
She takes Alexandre by the shoulders and shakes him up as if he were a mirabellier tree full of mirabelles ready to be eaten.
The mirabellier tree is typical from Lorraine and produces mirabelles, small yellow plums that are very sweet and juicy.
QDP Days #2 : At night, in extremis by Odile Bouhier – Discover Lyon in 1921 and the first CSI lab in the world
At night, in extremis by Odile Bouhier (2013) Original French title : La nuit, in extremis. Not available in English.
This is Day 2 of Marina’s and my Quais du Polar.
Today is about At night, in extremis by Odile Bouhier. It is the third instalment of a series set in Lyon, with professor Hugo Salacan and commissaire Kolvair as main characters.
We’re in 1921 and Anthelme Frachant gets out of prison. Commissaire Kolvair knew him from their war years and knows that he killed Bertail, another soldier and a friend of Kolvair’s. Kolvair suspects that he will kill again and decides to follow him. He takes a room in the same boarding house as Anthelme. During his first night there, Kolvair leaves his room in the middle of the night, overwhelmed by withdrawal symptoms and goes out in search of his next cocaine dose. Kolvair lost a leg in the Great War and suffers from phantom pain. He also has PTSD. Cocaine has become a coping mechanism and that night, it saves his life, in extremis. Indeed, while he was away, Anthelme slaughtered everyone in the boarding house.
Anthelme turns himself to the police and Kolvair finds him at the prison’s asylum. The question is Will Anthelme be judged for his crimes or will it be considered that he lacks criminal responsibility, due to mental illness? The alienist Bianca Serragio thinks that he is schizophrenic, an illness that doctors still investigate and try to define. Will she be able to convince Public Prosecutor Rocher that Anthelme cannot be hold accountable for his actions and that he must be placed in an asylum instead?
At night, in extremis is more a novel about Lyon, the 1920s than a true crime fiction novel. With the murderer known from the beginning and without any actual police investigation, the plot centers around the city, the times and the personal lives of the characters.
Lyon is where the cinema was born. It is also a scientific cluster for forensic science. Lyon had the first CSI lab in the world. Indeed, Edmond Locard (1877-1966) studied with Alexandre Lacassagne, a pioneer in forensic medicine. (See Lacassagne in action in my billet about The Rhône Murders by Coline Gatel) Both are from Lyon. In 1910, Locard set up the first CSI lab in the attic of the Palais de Justice in Lyon. He researched graphology, fingerprinting methods, ballistics and toxicology. He coined the Locard’s exchange principle, still used in today’s forensic science. His statement is that “Every contact leaves a trace”. His Traité de police scientifique is a seven-volume methodology of forensic science still in use in today’s CSI departments.
Kolvair believes in CSI and works with forensic scientists. Odile Bouhier evokes the famous lab in the attic. Her alienist, Bianca Serragio works at the Bron asylum, now known as Le Vinatier hospital. It was founded in 1877 and they still have some of the 19thC buildings and a big park. It’s also a reknown psychiatric hospital in France. Bianca Serragio is doing research in psychiatry, looking for ways to improve diagnosis and cures. The Rorschach test dates back to 1921 and Bianca believes it will help. Odile Bouhier depicts times of great scientific breakthroughs in criminology and psychiatrics.
This historical setting is interesting and piqued my curiosity. Since the crime plot was easily solved, the reader’s attention is focused on the characters’ personal lives.
Kolvair battles against demons inherited from the Great War and his liaison with Bianca is his safe place. Bianca has to fight for a field that needs recognition and being female doesn’t help. Forensic scientist Badou is orchestrating a hasty marriage of convenience because someone blackmails him, and threatens to reveals his homosexuality. His bride knows his sexual preferences and goes into this marriage with her eyes open. Professor Salacan’s children need extra-care, one has trisomy 21 and another is diabetic. This is how I learnt that in 1921, in Toronto, J.J.R. McLeod was conducting research and experiment on insulin.
Bouhier’s novel shows a city with a strong scientific community, but the novel felt unfinished, pieces are not stitched together well-enough. I had trouble remembering all the characters. There are too many of them for a 280 pages book. IMO, the writer should have either stuck with Kolvair and his PTSD or written a longer book, to give herself time to develop everyone’s personal lives and personalities.
It was a nice read for the local setting, the picture of Lyon in 1921. It spurred me to browse through several Wikipedia articles about Locard, Le Vinatier and other scientific facts and I always love to learn new things.
Many thanks to M. who gave me this book before moving back to America.
QDP Days #1 : Kingdom of the Strong by Tony Cavanaugh – Visit Melbourne and its police department
Kingdom of the Strong by Tony Cavanaugh (2015) French title: L’affaire Isobel Vine Translated by Fabrice Pointeau.
This is Day 1 of Marina’s and my Quais du Polar. Our beloved festival has been cancelled and we decided to post a billet about a book by an author invited to the festival. Marina’s first review is here. As far as I know, we have three other participants: Lizzy, Andrew and Guy. And maybe Max. I remind you that Pat, at South of Paris Books, read and reviewed the books short-listed for the Quais du Polar prize. The winner will be announced online today.
The festival has organised some online activities, go check them here. Here’s the program for April 3rd, the one for April 4th, and the one for April 5th. Now, let’s go back to Kingdom of the Strong by Tony Cavanaugh, who was invited to Quais du Polar in 2019, the year he signed my copy of his book. It seems a fitting book to illustrate Quais du Polar, Cavanaugh even mentions Lyon and its famous Edmond Locard, who was a pioneer of CSI. (more of that in an upcoming billet)
Kingdom of the Strong is an excellent cold-case crime fiction set in Melbourne. It won the Prix du Meilleur Polar awarded by readers of the publisher Points in France.
Burned out, Darian Richards resigned from the Melbourne police force four years ago and settled in an isolated cabin in Queensland. To Australian standards, it sounds like leaving the heart of civilisation to live as a recluse in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, only with warmer weather. Poor Darian tries his hand at fishing but doesn’t have the skills of a Jim Harrison character.
So when his former boss and mentor, Copeland Walsh comes to take him out of retirement to work on twenty-five-year-old cold case, the death of Isobel Vine, he has mixed feelings. In appearances, Darian has no wish to jump back into action, in Melbourne or anywhere else but he cannot refuse anything to Walsh, a sort of father figure to him. And, burned out or not, he misses the job.
Copeland was offering more than a job. I’d been trying to fight it but having a hard time. I was remembering the buzz and the thrill of an incoming murder announcement. We lived for murder. It was exciting. In Victoria we’d have about a hundred a year, but we always wanted more. Give me two hundred, three hundred, give me a city of killings. The swirl of the eighth floor, the crews working Homicide, the buzz and the thrill, the oxygen that gets us moving. Eventually, over time, I was poisoned and burned out, unable to break free of the victims and their wraith-like murmurs of anguish fingering out like tentacles, reaching into my increasingly vodka-soaked mind as I kept searching for the very few killers, most notably The Train Rider, who slipped the net, stayed in the shadows, killing again and again or maybe retiring after one or two successful shots at it, leaving behind the plaintive sounds of the victims, calling for justice. Or calling out for me, at least, the guy who wanted to be perfect, Mr Hundred-Per-Cent, that’s how it seemed. I couldn’t deny, not after seeing the boss and hearing the war stories, that old feeling of camaraderie within the ranks of the crews of the eighth. The idea of going back to HQ, to solve a twenty-five-year-old killing, was giving me flutters of excitement.
Against his better judgement, he goes back to Melbourne, and demands his former partners Maria and Isosceles as a team. They start investigating Isobel’s death.
Isobel was in high school and involved with her English teacher, Brian Dunn. She had spent a year in Bolivia as an exchange student and upon Brian’s request had brought a “present from a friend”, drugs. The customs caught her at the Melbourne airport and the police was after her to get the names of her contacts.
Isobel was found dead, hung up with a man tie at her bedroom door, naked. The police concluded it was suicide, a sexual game with a deadly outcome. The night she died, there was a party at her flat and four young cops were among the guests. One of them, Nick Racine is now a serious contender for the position of Police Commissioner in Melbourne. The Premier of Victoria wants to make sure they endorse someone with a clean past.
Darian is in charge of re-opening the Isobel Vine investigation with the purpose to prove once for all, that Nick Racine has nothing to do with her death and that his nomination as Police Commissioner is possible.
They start digging and poking around everyone’s past. They meet with Isobel’s boyfriend, her teacher and the guests of that last fateful party. They stir up bad memories, things that people would rather leave buried now that they have moved on. They do their best to piece together Isobel’s life and see what happened to her.
Tony Cavanaugh is a screenwriter and his novel benefits from it. It’s very cinematographic, it’s fast paced, with a lot of twists and turns. Sometimes, I thought that one or two plot devices were a bit farfetched and now I wish I could ask Tony Cavanaugh if he invented them or if he read about it in newspapers as sometimes reality surpasses fiction.
The narration alternates between the past and the present, letting the reader peek into Isobel’s life. Cavanaugh uses an omniscient narrator for all the characters except Darian. He speaks at the first person. The cast of characters was well drawn and Darian and Maria make a great pair.
He’s like a lone wolf PI, responding to his own moral code and said moral code is not always in line with legality. He’s a man scarred by his years in the police force, to the point that every street in Melbourne reminds him of a case. It spoils his pleasure of strolling in the city. He only sees the ghost of investigations past. You see that both the French and English covers show a lonely PI with a gun and the Melbourne skyline. I prefer the English cover.
Maria is a spitfire and her boyfriend used to be a big shot in the Melbourne crime community. It’s at odds with her job and she’s always afraid that his former life is not completely over and that his criminal endeavours put stains on her career in the police force. She and Darian make a great team. Helped by Isosceles’s uncanny ability to unearth information about people, they dive into this investigation head on and don’t hesitate to ruffle feathers in the process.
Cavanaugh take us in Melbourne’s back-alleys, in the corridors of the police force where well-established cops feel that they now are on a hot seat. Will they get out of it unscathed? Will they manage to find out what happened to Isobel, twenty-five years ago?
Read the book and find out. It’s an entertaining read, one that will virtually take you out of lockdown. It will take your mind off epidemic thoughts and wash away the virus of anxiety that eats at us, despite our best efforts. Recommended.
A little word about French stuff in this book. I love noting them down.
I mentioned Edmond Locard earlier but several other odd references to French things pop in Cavanaugh’s novel and it was unexpected.
Maria listens to Les Négresses Vertes.
There’s a funny explanation of Voilà! I paraphrase since I have the book in French translation: Cavanaugh says it seems to mean anything from take this to the cat is dead. Well observed, I’d say.
And then when the characters go to a -stuffy- French restaurant in Melbourne, the French waiter is named Jean-Paul. What is it with Australian writers and the name Jean-Paul? Is there an Australian reader out there who can spot the French textbook with a character named Jean-Paul? There must be one. I have no intention to write a book, but I promise that if I ever change my mind, I won’t name the British characters and their dog, Brian, Jenny and Cheeky.
Quais du Polar : Let’s celebrate anyway
Quais du Polar is this fantastic crime fiction festival that takes over the city of Lyon by storm every year.
Sadly, this year, like many cultural event, the 2020 edition is cancelled. No crime fest in Lyon from April 3rd to April 5th. Marina Sofia and I met at this festival, attended panels with writers who discussed around a crime theme, queued to have books signed and had a lot of fun browsing through the wonderful bookstore set up in the vast hall of the Lyon Chamber of Commerce.
We still want to celebrate crime fiction this year and have decided to publish a crime fiction billet for each day of the festival. We will choose books from writers who would have attended the 2020 session or books we got signed in previous editions. We would love for you to join us and do a virtual festival with us. You can find the list of writers here and if you want to listen to previous years’ panels, it’s available in replay here.
Choose whatever book you want as long as the writer has attended the festival and post a review on your blog on April 3, 4 or 5th. If you don’t have a blog, leave a review in the comments on this post and use #QDP2020. The festival’s team is also here @QuaisPolar.
There’s another initiative: Quais du Polar is also a crime fiction prize and Pat, at South of Paris Books has decided to read the six books preselected for this year’s prize.
Let’s get together and take advantage of our lockdowns. May this post go viral.
Quais du Polar is suspended: bloody virus
It’s official, Quais du Polar (April 3-5) is suspended this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The decision was inevitable and of course, understandable. We won’t be out of this crisis by April 3rd.
Each year, the festival has a theme and the 2020 edition was focused on shedding “the light on “the other Americas”, the diversity of American peoples, the minorities sometimes forgotten or misunderstood, the linguistic enclaves, the various social crisis, and the forgotten ones of the American dream. Yes, it was promising.
The Quais du Polar Prize will be announced online on April 3rd and we’ll see what suspended means as opposed to cancelled.
I’m sorry for the non-profit organization Quais du Polar and all the volunteers for all the work they had already put in to prepare the festival. I hope Quais du Polar will get financial help and that they’ll be able to recover from this year’s crisis. This festival must go on next year, 100 000 people attended in 2019 and many of them came to Lyon for the occasion. It’s good for the city, it’s good for the book industry.
I don’t know how disappointed the writers might be, they always seem to have a good time at Quais du Polar, meeting fellow writers from various countries and talking to avid crime fiction readers. Some are really impressed by the crowds and the lines at the signings.
One major side of the festival is the giant bookstore set up in the Chamber of Commerce. Indie libraires have a stand, welcome writers for signings and interact with the public to recommend crime fiction books. They are at the heart of the festival too. In 2019, they sold 40 000 books during the three-days festival. Now these shops won’t have this business and will be closed to the public until further notice. Imagine the loss for these small businesses. I will go and buy them the number of books I would have bought at the festival, as soon as I can. I hope other readers will do it too and that the bookshops will be able to ride this tsunami and hold on. We need them on our streets and in our neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, let’s all be respectful of security measures, keep working as best we can and read from the TBR.
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent – it will leave you breathless
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent (2017) French title: My Absolute Darling.
Gabriel Tallent was at Quais du Polar in 2018 although My Absolute Darling is not crime fiction. After reading it, I understand why he was invited: this is a novel that walks on the thin line between literary fiction and thriller.
Turtle Alveston is fourteen and lives in an isolated cabin on the Northern California coast with her father Martin. Her paternal grandfather drinks himself to death in a trailer in the backyard. Martin is a survivalist. He believes that the world is going to collapse, he doesn’t trust the system and trains his daughter to prepare for the end of the world. He’s also abusive and a totally unfit parent.
When the book opens, it’s Spring and Turtle is in her last year of middle school. She does her best to keep everyone at arm’s length. She doesn’t engage with other students, donning a coat of aggressivity to push everyone away. Her English teacher Anna isn’t giving up though. Turtle fails at her spelling tests and Anna pokes at Turtle, feeling that things aren’t right at home.
Martin is a lunatic with his frightening theories, a sort of guru with only one attendant to his cult: his daughter. Martin is a damaged man, intelligent, charismatic and powerful. He’s controlling and uses every means in his possession to nail his power over his daughter. He manipulates her with love, he threatens her and he’s violent, verbally and physically. He beats her up and assaults her. Martin loves his daughter in a very sick way, he calls her my absolute darling. He wants to own her. He leaves nothing out to ensure that she doesn’t venture outside of the cocoon he has created for her. Except that his cocoon isn’t soft and nurturing, its walls are made of sea urchin.
Turtle’s mother is dead, her grandpa cares about her but is too deep in his drunkard hole to take action. Martin does everything he can to keep Turtle under his spell. He’s her dad, her only parent, her only figure of authority. They are isolated and she doesn’t know anything else.
Turtle finds solace in the nature around her house. She’s tough, knows how to live off the land, how to avoid dangers, how to build a fire, how to orientate herself in the wilderness. Martin and her grandpa taught her these skills. She’s an expert with guns, Martin makes her practice all the time. She is a warrior, accumulating a lot of survival skills and inner strength.
Fourteen is a pivotal age. Puberty hits. Children start to take their independence, of mind and of action. They start to hike the awkward trail to adulthood and parents do not control as much as before what they are exposed to and who they are in contact with. Their own social circle starts to be more important than the family one. Parents stop to be heroes who know everything and are always right and become mere humans. It’s the age where Martin’s control over Turtle is meant to slip and this father is not about to accept it. He can’t let her go.
Several events arrive in a short time span. Anna is more insistent in her follow-up. Turtle rescues Brett and Jacob, two teenagers from the local high school who went hiking and got lost. The outside world makes a dent in Turtle’s shell and begins to get to her. Martin taught her skills to cope with the end of the world and to be self-reliant. She will use these skills to claw herself out of her abusive father’s large paws. She will use them to put an end to her world.
And we, readers, follow her, silent witnesses to all her failings, her strength and her inner pep talks.
She thinks, you will trust in your discipline and your courage and you will never leave them and never abandon them and you will be stronger, grim and courageous and hard, and you will never sit as he sits, looking at your life as he looks at it, you will be strong and pure and cold for the rest of your goddamn life and these are lessons you will never forget.
We are rooting for her. We are horrified by her home situation and we watch her looking for her way out, trying to get out of the mental maze where her father holds her prisoner. She’s like a princess, hostage of a dark prince, except that this princess doesn’t wait idly for her knight to rescue her. She’s been raised to think that one can only count of themselves. Fortunately. And in a sense, she’s right. Where are the adults in this story?
My Absolute Darling is Tallent’s debut novel and it is truly extraordinary. He manages to insinuate himself into the mind of a fourteen-year-old abused girl. We are in Turtle’s mind, seeing the world through the distorting glasses she wears, courtesy of her father’s twisted education.
The novel holds together in every aspect. It’s built like a psychological thriller but it isn’t one. Things happen, one at a time, each one adding a brick to the story, pushing it forward, building up suspense and threat. Some scenes are extremely intense and disturbing, some at home with Martin and some in the wilderness, along the shore. Turtle’s life is surrounded with dangers, at home and outside. She has no real safe place.
Gabriel Tallent shows us how hard it is to go out of an abusive relationship and even more when it is a parent/child one. Turtle loves Martin and hates him at the same time. He loves her and is the one who hurts her the most. In an interview, Tallent says he used the relationship between Albertine and the Narrator in The Captive to draw Martin. (See my billet here about The Captive. It’s entitled Every breath you take, every move you make, I’ll be watching you.) I can see how Proust could be helpful.
There is no attempt at psychology or psychiatry in My Absolute Darling. Tallent never tries to put a medical name on Martin’s behavior. We only understand that he had a destructive relationship with his own father. Tallent doesn’t dig further, it’s not his purpose. He focuses on Turtle and we really want her to succeed and climb out of this dark world to join ours. Even if we are destroying nature at a frightening speed and if this world is imperfect.
My Absolute Darling is an excellent book, unbearable to read at time. I had to put it down sometimes, to reconnect to my surroundings because I was too far away with Turtle and her bad place. I had to bring my mind back from that hellish cabin in Northern California. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means that we are in the presence of a very gifted writer.
Highly recommended. Of course, in France, it’s published by Gallmeister.n
Book Around the Corner 