C’est La Vie - Pascal Garnier's super short road novel explodes like noir napalm in the final third, a femme fatale fueled hallucinogenic haze of blood and guts.
Go for it. Pick up a copy and join Jeff Colombier as the fifty-year-old, instantly famous crime fiction writer tells his tale of life on the move with his coke snorting, rocker son.
Along the way, word slinger Jeff fires off rounds of smokin' insights re our modern world and his own struggles past and present. Among their number, take a gander at these:
Marriage as Suffocation - "It's not easy to escape the shipwreck of the forties, swimming in a dead sea as thick as pea soup, with that island on the horizon that shrinks as you approach it." After five years with Hélène, Jeff admits defeat - he anaesthetized himself nose in bottle; Hélène, nose in powder. Reaching old age together might seem like a good idea but, damn, day-to-day reality has an ugly way of asserting itself.
Lights, Action, Camera - "The lens of a camera looks very like the hole in a guillotine. I went on set with my scalp showing and my face covered in a layer of brown peanut butter." The big moment has come: Jeff steps on stage. Oh, wow - there he is! He's ready to receive his award, the coveted literary prize that will transform poor, obscure Jeff the scribbler into rich, famous Jeff Colombier, star author. And to think, the winner spent the previous night gazing in disbelief at his face in the bathroom mirror, bracing himself with drink after drink after drink.
Identity Crisis - "Everyone knew that it was a sham. Yes, I had written it, but it wasn't my fault! I was innocent." Ha! Jeff has the distinct feeling the inspiration for his story came from his muse - he simply transcribed what he was given. Also, whose face is that on the book's back cover? Is that me? I don't believe it!
Existential Alienation - "I was afraid I would never be able to get rid of the death-head smile that was pasted on my face; it would take a crowbar to unclench my teeth." Jeff can hardly believe the stage lights and TV camera froze his face into a goofy watermelon grin. Damn, he could barely speak. Afterwards, friend and editor Serge Cumin tells Jeff not to worry - being overly emotional won over thousands of readers and his book will sell like hotcakes. Ah, fame; ah, book sales – come on, Jeff, that’s what truly counts!
Publicity Tour Torture - "I let myself be dragged from town to town, as unresisting as a gift-wrapped parcel.” Jeff recognizes all during his book tour who he is as a person has become little more than a commodity to sell his book. And the unending lineup of eager fans waiting for his autograph saps his energy. Oh, man, somebody can really use a drink!
The Examined Life - "Happiness for those unused to it is like food for the starving - a little too much can be fatal." Pascal Ganier leavens his tale with oodles of reflections on our human condition. What is the nature of happiness? Should we value being happy all the time? Or, would we be wise to open ourselves up to the entire rage of human experience – things like misery, deprivation, loneliness, pain, anguish? Does at least some unhappiness fuel artistic and literary creation?
Long Live the World We Know and Love - "There was no more right and wrong; everything was wrong. The sports results that came on next served more or less to cauterize the gaping wounds." Jeff watches TV at a bar. Our perceptive writer can discern the unresolved complexities and nastiness of what counts as nightly “news” requires clear-cut updates from sports to reassure everyone their world ultimately makes sense and their society can be trusted.
Oh, Youth and Beauty - "I was trying to rediscover my youth, and where better to find it than in the features of that young man who no longer resembled me." I outlined the above points to underscore the many motives propelling Jeff to urge his son Damion to join him as he embarks on his road trip. Does Jeff want to recapture his own youth through Damien? Does Jeff want to take another stab at being a good father? What does it mean for a man, in this case a literary artist, to make a break and strike out anew?
Black Humor - "After two years, there was not a single item of our wedding list we had not hurled at each other. We had been forced to separate for lack of projectiles." Any fan of the author knows a Pascal Garnier tale is a tale soaked in black humor. Certainly, the same goes for C'est La Vie. "Forced to separate for lack of projectiles" - I wonder how a divorce lawyer would put the spin on that one!
All of the above is taken from the book's first two-thirds, the perfect setup for the noir napalm explosion I mentioned, a ka-boom too powerful for me to say anything further.
By my eye, the above art captures the feeling Jeff has after snorting Colombia's finest. "I hadn't taken cocaine since . . . since I'd become old. This was of the finest quality. I felt as though a lead weight had been lifted off my head, which, light as a balloon, now seemed to be attached to my body by only the slenderest of threads, which vibrated at the least emotion. Mile after mile, all the junk of rusty memory that had been weighing me down evaporated like condensation swept from side air, my nostrils perfectly cleansed, my gums delightfully anaesthetised."
French author Pascal Garnier, 1949-2010
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