Irène by Pierre Lemaitre

 

Irène by Pierre Lemaitre - crime fiction containing multiple scenes of butchered female flesh, bones and guts to be read only on an empty stomach. Consider yourself warned.

I'm piggybacking on what Goodreads friend Jim Fonseca writes in his review of this Lemaitre novel: "I don’t usually do this because I seldom read books like this, but I’ll start with a content warning. If you are bothered by descriptions of the torture, dismemberment and mutilation of women, this book is not for you."

And here's the first line of William Grimes' New York Times review: "Beware of crime writers citing Roland Barthes. They cannot be trusted." (Lemaitre begins with a Roland Barthes quote: The writer is someone who arranges quotes and removes the quotation marks.). Yet, Sue Turnbull in her Sydney Morning Herald review concludes by saying, "Trust Lemaitre: he knows what he's doing."

So, what should we make of Pierre Lemaitre and his blood-splattered Irène?

Let's begin with historical context: in the US back in the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, crime novels found their way to pulp fiction racks at the local dimestore, novels like Double Indemnity by James M. Cain and Dark Passage by David Goodis. And, in France, novels like Vertigo by Boileau & Narcejac and The King of Fools by Frédéric Dard. All these novels were short and tightly constructed, running about 150 pages with any description of violence brief and sharp. This tradition of short and tight continued through the 70s, 80s and 90s with such authors as Jean-Patrick Manchette and Pascal Ganier. However, at the turn of the millennium, things shifted: crime novels became much longer, usually running to over 400 pages and the descriptions of violence detailed and elaborate, prime examples: Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Jo Nesbø's The Leopard - and Irène, a 400+ pager overflowing with violence excruciatingly detailed and painstakingly elaborated.

I abhor violence both in life and in literature. Yet I found Irène a gripping, fascinating read on three counts. Firstly: similar to crime fiction by the authors mentioned above, Lemaitre focuses on existential crisis where his men and women are forced to make moral choices in the teeth of extreme, intense, frequently chaotic events. Secondly: novels, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis and The Black Dahlia by James Elroy among their number, play a pivotal role in Lemaitre's unfolding plot and cause the tale to twist and twist again (a meta-twist, of sorts). Since I'm particularly attracted to fiction where books, reading, writing and writers are key, I eagerly kept turning the pages (and listening to the audio book expertly narrated by Peter Noble). Thirdly, Lemaitre's pacing is prestissimo from beginning to end. There's hardly time for anyone in the book to take a deep breath.

Pierre Lemaitre sets the stage: forty-year-old Parisian crack detective Commandant Camille Verhœven, a man 4' 11” tall (Toulouse-Lautrec was 5' 0'), is about to embark on a case where the criminal commits acts of unspeakable savagery modeled on scenes from novels. And this mephistophelian villain entices Camille into an unnerving cat and mouse game. Such crimes, such hellish games are exactly what Camille doesn't need at this time in his life as his beautiful wife Irène is over eight months pregnant with her first child – a boy.



Pierre Lemaitre has it all going here: his characters are fully formed and memorable, as are his scenes, dialogue - and, when it kicks in toward the end, his action and more action. Yet, for me, what makes Irène special is the connection Lemaitre creates between the world of actual crimes and the world of the novel.

If what I've noted here is at all inviting, you'll surely want to give this Pierre Lemaitre humdinger a whirl.


French crime novelist Pierre Lemaitre, born 1951