Tuesday 22 January 2013

A26 | Roadkill | Pascal Garnier




Pascal Garnier’s The A26... this is literary fiction with a hapless, desperate serial killer.

At first I didn’t think it really came off. We’re introduced to Yolande and Bernard, a peculiar brother and sister who live together in a small town outside Paris. Yolande hasn’t left the house in years – not since the end of the second world war. Her brother has just discovered he is dying, which spurs him, oddly, into a killing spree.

At first Garnier seems intent on playing this for laughs as if the victims are utterly meaningless and that jars a bit.

But as the book went on it began to really grip me. The truth that is revealed is that for these Frenchmen and women the war has never really ended, and they are the poorer for it.

No comments:

Post a Comment