Novels No. 71

 

Antoine Laurain. French Windows (Dangereusement douce) 2023. UK: Gallic Books, 2024.

This novel is way beyond Psychology 101. It was not exactly what I expected although yes, it contains a mystery, as do the characters therein. Dr Faber is a psychoanalyst, a shrink as he calls himself. He treats the standard variety of disorders on the conventional couch. Until Nathalie lies down on it. A photographer by profession, she has hit a block, has lost her desire or ability with the camera. Because the last photograph she took was of a murder—the main mystery. Without having further details, the doctor gives her an exercise: write what she knows about people on the five-floor apartment building opposite her own, a building she often trained her camera on in the past. Before each session with Faber, Nathalie delivers her assignments. Each written essay is in first person narrative.

We don't know how this kind of therapy will help improve or manage Nathalie's problem. We are told about Alice the YouTube influencer, Alban the cartoonist, Vince the songwriter, Marc the financier who recently moved away, and a nameless heavily-addicted smoker; all of them were or are making positive changes in their lives. We also don't know how Nathalie knows so much about them—Faber suspects she is inventing most of it. Will she prove him wrong? How this plays out in the paternal doctor-patient relationship is another mystery.

But a murder did/does occur and Nathalie has evidence. Even though we learn little about this woman, here's an author who is a master of cerebral style, spinning an intimate, beguiling tale that subtly touches on our social constructs.

Faber

▪ In truth, analysis is quite boring. (25)

▪ "Do you see your camera as a barrier between you and the world, a form of protection?" (26)

▪ "You're projecting yourself through these identities. With some talent, indeed. But you are there, in each of these lives." (101)

▪ "What am I to understand from the story of the man who chooses to live with his female cat, rather than with his wife and child?" (101)

▪ For a moment, I felt like a publisher in discussion with a first-time author. At least, I imagine this is the sort of conversation they might have. We need to resume our respective roles: therapist and patient. (124)

▪ Sitting there in my daughter's old room, what I felt was not romantic love. I wished that Nathalia could have been my daughter. (128)

From the Stories

▪ A truly loving partner does not sulk ‒ check my video on women who sulk! (34)

▪ "Your friend is... is North African?" he said, speaking very slowly, in a toneless voice, as if he was announcing the imminent arrival of an asteroid that would blast us all back to the age of the dinosaurs. (39)

▪ I'll kill the fat guy and release my thinner self. I'll murder the man who's poisoned my life for as long as I can remember. (70)

▪ I had become a kind of living cliché of success in today's consumer society. (111)

▪ We don't need a new metaverse, we're there already ‒ everything takes place in front of a screen. (112)

▪ To me, the loss of my pleasure in smoking felt as if a whole section of my personality had come crashing down, never to be rebuilt. (149)

Denise Mina. The End of the Wasp Season. Toronto: McArthur & Company, 2011.

From a Tartan Noir icon, another deliciously rich crime novel from the past. Mina's DS Alex Morrow is in a small series (see also Novels No. 62 this year), a cop pregnant with twins at this time. Working the case of Sarah Errol, a young woman who was severely beaten to death in her deceased mother's home, Alex and her team are startled to find hundreds of thousands of euros hidden in Sarah's kitchen. Their boss Bannerman takes charge, underscoring the rancour among their police politics. Alex runs into an old friend in that neighbourhood. She hasn't seen Kay Murray for years, now a cleaner for nearby wealthy homeowners and who had cared for Sarah's mother in a long illness. A parallel story follows teen schoolboy Thomas who is just informed that his father, Lars Anderson, committed suicide by hanging at their sprawling estate. Lars' extensive business interests had collapsed, infuriating investors, and the Andersons are losing everything they owned.

In an unorthodox plot move, the author lets us know who killed Sarah, but the suspense builds on why. As Alex collects information about her, the woman's travels indicated suspicious activities and surprising relationships; she was making money for her mother's expensive care. Alex herself avoids any reference to her own family, especially her criminal brother Danny, while Bannerman expects to nail the Murray family for murder. Thomas makes discoveries as he wanders through a fog: his mother Moira apologizes, his sister Ella is psychotic, and his father's second family is not far away. The contrast between unloved children and beloved children is heartbreaking, often with tragic conclusions.

Mina has an unerring pen for the gritty social order in Glasgow and its struggling characters—no filters. Many threads woven here, thick with humanity at its worst or best. IMO this book is one of her most brilliant.

Alex

▪ Danny broke jaws and slammed car doors on hands. Danny stabbed a man in the face with a bottle. Danny did those things when he felt he was owed or when he wanted something. (21)

▪ Bannerman's rudeness had made it a point of pride among the men to hide their lights, as if being good at their job was helping Bannerman be a prick. (34)

▪ Five-hundred-euro notes usually meant money laundering, usually meant drugs. (35)

▪ Stay angry, stay detached. Everyone was worried about her doing the job because she was pregnant. She could feel herself fading in the eyes of the big bosses, becoming an invisible factor, dying in their eyes. (39)

▪ "My job is extra hard today because I have to try and manipulate you into giving a toss." She looked at them. "That's annoying." (170)

▪ He was taking a theological approach to it, treading very carefully, he was tiptoeing around a big fat bloody lie and was willing to be charged with murder rather than give it up. (339-40)

Kay

▪ Kay always arrived half an hour early, thirty minutes that she insisted she didn't get paid for, just to listen to Margery moan and weep because she was lonely and so much had gone wrong and she couldn't talk to her clubhouse ladies because none of them ever admitted to having troubles. (77)

▪ "Me and Mrs. Errol ..." she moved the food around her plate. "best friend I ever had." (211)

▪ "I'm not scared because I've done anything. I'm scared because I don't trust you. Any of ye." (226)

▪ Kay wanted to get out of here. She had never asked Danny for anything and it was a mistake to come here now. (271)

Thomas

▪ Moira. Distant, stupid, no-longer-pretty mother. She'd be fainting away every half hour, unable to cope with the loss of a man who'd been phoning his mistresses from the breakfast table for years. (82)

▪ He couldn't blame Squeak but took it on himself, as if Squeak was a part of him that he had allowed to grow and fester unchecked. (83)

▪ They were eating there so that people could see him squander two-hundred-quid meals on an awkward teenager and a soppy kid. His father wasn't special, he was just rich. (84)

▪ He couldn't imagine Lars with this woman: she didn't look formal enough, or old enough. She looked like Sarah Erroll, except very tall and pretty. (243)

▪ "I'm sorry, Ella, I thought you were faking." And then he didn't say anything after that. (311-2)