Gallic Noir Volume 3: The Eskimo Solution, Low Heights, Too Close to the Edge (Gallic Noir, 3) - Softcover

Pascal Garnier

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1910477605 ISBN 13: 9781910477601

Publisher: Gallic Books, 2018

Synopsis

‘One of the most remarkable and, in the English-speaking world at least, one of the most inexplicably underappreciated French writers of the twentieth century’ John Banville, New York Review of Books

Enter the world of Pascal Garnier, where life's misfits take centre stage, there is drama in the everyday and the unexpected is always just around the corner. 

Volume 3 includes The Eskimo Solution, in which a struggling writer's life becomes disconcertingly entangled with the crime novel he’s writing; Low Heights, in which vultures circle as a cantankerous retiree falls for his nurse and finds himself confronted with a man claiming to be his long-lost son; and Too Close to the Edge, the tale of a quiet retirement in the foothills of the Alps turned upside down.

Dark, funny and shot through with menace, these perfectly crafted novellas of Gallic noir are also affecting studies in human alienation. 

About this title

About the Author

Pascal Garnier, who died in 2010, was a prolific author of books for adults and children, and a painter. He lived in the mountains of the Ardèche.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

TOO CLOSE TO THE EDGE: CHAPTER 1 As the peeled potato fell into the pan of water, it made a loud plop which rebounded off the kitchen walls like a tennis ball. Holding the peeler still in her hand, Éliette paused to savour the moment; this – she was certain – was pure happiness. Buffeted and battered by a year of uncontainable sobs, her heart had at last steadied itself like the green bubble in a spirit level. There was no particular reason for this newfound calm, or rather, there were a thousand: it was May, the rain was beating against the windows, there was baroque music playing on France Musique; she was making her first vegetable jardinière of the season (fresh peas, lettuce hearts, carrots, potatoes, turnips, spring onions, and not forgetting the lardons!); the Colette biography she had picked up the day before at Meysse library was propped open at page 48 on the living-room table; she wasn’t expecting anyone, and no one was expecting her. All these little things along with countless others meant that for the first time since Charles’s death she did not feel lonely in the house by herself, but one and indivisible. The France Musique presenter introduced the next programme in a voice which called to mind a priest with a pickled liver. Éliette opened her eyes and set to work on the last potato, challenging herself to peel it in one continuous length. Then she cut the carrots and turnips into perfectly evenly sized pieces, gave the lettuce a shake and plunged her hands into the colander of peas with a sigh of pleasure. The sensation of the little green marbles rolling between her fingers was as enjoyable now as it had been in childhood, when she helped Mémé Alice shell peas. It was the reward for her hard work. Her grandmother’s kitchen was like a women-only hammam. The windows were clouded by aromatic steam. Mémé Alice’s gnarled arthritic fingers resembled moving tree roots as they sliced vegetables, trussed chickens and kneaded dough as soft and white as the flesh of her arms. There was no talking in Alice’s kitchen, only singing. Edged with a thick layer of grey fluff, her upper lip quivered as she hummed ‘Les Roses blanches’, ‘La Butte rouge’ or ‘Mon vieux Pataud’. With her sizeable girth straining against the front pocket of a huge black apron, Mémé Alice strongly resembled the castiron stove which seemed to blaze constantly. Indeed, such was the affinity between the two that you almost wondered in whose belly her dishes had been baked, stewed or roasted as she brought them to the table, huffing and puffing like an old steam engine. Despite the fact she now had three grandchildren of her own, Éliette would never be a Mémé Alice. The children called her Mamie – probably because she was not old or fat enough to be a Mémé, her hair not long enough to pin up in a taut bun like a cartoon elderly aunt. These days, old age was regarded as an insult, an ugly omen from which children should be shielded. It brought to mind visions of prolapse, support stockings and many other repulsive things besides, as hideous a prospect as death itself. Éliette was sixty-four. She was one of those people who had always been and would remain attractive in a wholesome, obvious sort of way. She had never needed to give nature a helping hand. Just a touch of lipstick now and then when she and Charles went out of an evening, purely for the raspberry-flavoured kisses. Even the few wrinkles gathered around her eyes brought a new charm to her face. It was as though time had polished her with beeswax. Only Charles’s passing had slightly dulled the sparkle in her eyes, and placed her smile in permanent parentheses. The two of them had shared forty years of untarnished love before Charles was suddenly carried off by cancer two months before he was due to retire. They had already started packing for their move from the Parisian suburbs to this house in the Ardèche, where life was supposed to be a neverending holiday. They had bought the former silk farm thirty years earlier. Year after year, they had spent every spare moment doing it up to turn it into the haven of peace that sadly she alone now enjoyed. After Charles’s death, Sylvie and Marc had tried to put her off going through with the move. ‘It’s madness, Maman. What are you going to do with yourself, stuck down there in the back of beyond? It’s a nice place to go on holiday, but living there full-time is another story.’ ‘But I won’t be on my own. The Jauberts are here!’ ‘The Jauberts! I mean, they’re decent people and everything, but all they do is go on about tractors and frosts and their disappointing onion crop. And as far as neighbours go, that would be your lot. You haven’t even got a driving licence and the nearest village is eight kilometres away. How are you going to do your shopping? On a bike?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘And what if you’re ill?’ ‘I’ve got a telephone.’ ‘It’s ridiculous, completely ridiculous!’ For a few months Éliette had been undecided, kicking about the flat in Boulogne with nothing on the horizon but the TV schedule and the possibility of a Sunday visit from her children and grandchildren. Then one day … ‘I’m selling Boulogne and moving to Saint-Vincent.’ Marc rolled his eyes and Sylvie, as usual, burst into floods of tears. Of course it was madness, but that was exactly what she was missing: a touch of madness to stop herself sinking into reason. She moved house in late spring. For the first few months, Éliette quelled her doubts by indulging in an ever increasing range of activities, some more productive than others: she repainted doors and shutters that didn’t really need doing; planted vegetables and flowers, most of which died of boredom before they had even budded; set out to learn Italian on a tape recorder she never quite worked out how to use; spent considerable sums on subscriptions to lifestyle magazines – Grow Your Own Veg, Sew Your Own Curtains, Learn to Love Yourself, and so on; and started a diary, but never got beyond the first three pages. Then autumn came along.

Edition details

• Publisher: Gallic Books
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1910477605
• ISBN 13: 9781910477601
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400