Paris Requiem - Lisa Appignanesi

It would be an understatement to say it’s been a busy couple of months. What with all the Christmas preparation (I have infinite family members to buy presents for), family festivities, reuniting with friends, and the not-so-teeny task of dissertation writing and exam revision it’s been easy to neglect the blog. But I’ve managed to not neglect my reading so much, and it’s been a real treat having Lisa Appignanesi’s Paris Requiem to cuddle up with each night at the end of a cold, hectic (but fun!) day.

Paris Requiem is not a short novel. At about 500 pages it’s not a quick, or easy, read. For me it was happily a slow burner, the thing I dedicated the reading part of my mind to for a good six weeks. I would challenge anyone to read this book in much less time, it is extremely demanding both in the complex twists and turns of the storyline, and in the descriptive language. I found it hard to read more than two chapters in one sitting, and I needed at least 24 hours to let all the information and drama that each chapter is saturated with sink in and settle in my mind. Looking back on the experience of reading the book, I think the length of each chapter allows Appignanesi to indulge in both a richly gripping detective story and a lyricism of language and engulfing description of Paris, two things which crime writers often choose between, usually letting the latter go in favour of a shorter, more accessible storyline. To me, having read Paris Requiem, this is a regrettable error on the part of other writers, and the combination of the two is a testament to the author’s dedication to an all-encompassing tale that demands not just dramatic events and exciting dialogue, but a conjured up image of Paris which entirely envelops and transports the reader to the period and location of the novel. Understanding one could not be possible without the other, which is what made this so much more than a ‘psychological thriller’ for me.

Yet another novel that’s near impossible to write a brief summary of, but I’ll give it a go. Paris Requiem follows the reluctant, emotionally closed off American James Norton sent to Paris by his mother to retrieve his rebellious younger brother Raf and their fragile but eccentric sister Ellie. As soon as he arrives in Paris, James is swept up in the whirlwind of his siblings’ lives, hunting down the murderer of Raf’s drowned lover whilst simultaneously revealing the corruption of underground Paris and his own forgotten past. Appignanesi’s talent lies in her ability to tie together so many central strands into one story, managing to encompass an entire historical period through one family’s experiences. Despite having such a specific time and place setting, this book reminded me of one of the first novels I remember truly loving: Daphne Du Maurier’s The Parasites. This too explores the inner workings of the relationships between 3 siblings within the wider context of historical events, clashing intimate familial issues with huge world-changing events. Of course, the desire to reveal the solution to the thriller is what keeps you reading in Paris Requiem, but what really stayed with me afterwards was the tension in sibling relationships between competitiveness, jealously, rivalry, and an eternal, unbreakable attachment and unconditional love. The initial uptight, by-the-book nature of James is crucial to the impact of this tension, and the emotional dramatic irony of us realising the depths of his relationships before he does is not wasted.

At the same time as keeping us invested in the relatable familial storyline, Appignanesi flawlessly transports us to turn of the century Paris as if it is the most natural location in the world. Paris – the eternally romantic, magical city of love – becomes through Appiganesi’s description a dark and terrifying place, haunted with shadows of past, present and future. The narrative is one of those that no one can quite explain but everyone understands – one that gives you that claustrophobic feeling of danger and suffocation. At each corner that James turned, a fresh description, each dimmer than the previous, seizes the reader, and despite my ability to put the book down, I found myself just as incapable of shaking of that tainted, dirty feeling of the surroundings that James does.

Once again (thanks to Arcardia Books), I have finished a book a whole lot more knowledgeable about a place and time than I was before. This time, late 19^th century Paris - with its corruption which spreads like a disease to bond all aspects of society from the aristocratic politicians, to the powerful police, to the trusted doctors, to the seedy world of trafficking and prostitution - was laid out before me, and brought more shocking revelations as I turned each page. The American origins of our protagonists removes them from the story in the same way as the reader is, whilst the revelation that they may not be so innocently uninvolved in the Parisian world as they at first seem seduces us too into a world of inescapable corruption.

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Cloudland - Joseph Olshan

I’m writing this in a gleeful (and slightly smug) state, feeling warm and full at home – a novelty for us students. Yes that’s right – it’s reading week, woohoo! Having finally got rid of the two essays that have been plaguing me for the past two months, it’s time for some well-earned time off. I managed a day of doing nothing before I was itching to write again, so here’s my review on the brand new thriller Cloudland by Joseph Olshan.

Now I know ‘reading week’ is intended for us to catch up on neglected reading of the past six weeks prepare for the next six weeks of reading, but this time I’m planning on using it to delve into all the brand new books the lovely people at Arcadia Publishing sent me last week. So here’s the first instalment….

Joseph Olshan is an American novelist, journalist, and short story writer. When doing a bit of research into his past work, I wasn’t at all surprised that he isn’t a crime writer as such – in fact Cloudland seems to be his first novel marketed as a ‘crime novel’. Instead, Olshan’s focuses seem to be the tensions and depth within relationships, and the anxieties surrounding societies and communities. What I loved about Cloudland was its combination of these concerns with a fresh take on the much-loved crime fiction genre.

Based in a secluded community in small-town America called Cloudland, we follow the story as narrated by Catherine Winslow: a middle-aged divorcee/widow, ex journalist who lives alone with her two dogs and household pig. On a morning walk towards the end of winter Catherine discovers a dead body – a strangled woman who turns out to be one of a string of cases that are being investigated. Catherine is rapidly caught up in the investigation and the detective story becomes inextricably linked with her own personal life and dark problems. The sinister snowy setting, the cut-off rural location, the suspicious locals – all add up to the standard crime novel lay out, however our protagonist Catherine is precisely what makes this novel stand out as something more. Putting the perspective in that of someone who is not directly involved in the case itself makes Cloudland not just a thriller, but an exciting psychological thriller.

Don’t get me wrong – the scary and sinister plot devices and twists were exciting and addictive, the red herrings were constant, every character had something not-quite-right about them. I loved being put into the position of detective myself, and by the end I was desperate to know whodunit. However, more desperate was my desire to find out what would happened to Catherine in the end, her reaction to each new piece of the ominous puzzle was always the focus of my attention. Most striking for me was probably the dichotomy between Catherine’s unbelievable calmness and fearlessness in the face of a mass-murder case in which she – a woman living alone in a secluded area – could be the next victim, and her constant anxious preoccupations with regrets, the past, age, and responsibilities. For the majority of the book, the terror comes not from the image of the murderer coming to find Catherine one stormy night with no one to save her, but from inside Catherine’s own head – the inability to escape her own thoughts, and her past, are what really frighten Catherine.

Catherine’s restless awareness of age and the past seamlessly infiltrate the novel. Catherine’s previous relationship with a younger man is mirrored in her daughter’s current relationship with an older woman. An adult’s responsibility for their child is reflected in the rocky and sometimes reversed relationship between Catherine and Breck, and the neighbours Paul and Wade. We as readers are never allowed to forget the age – mental or physical – of any character and it becomes the default method of judging each one. I felt Olshan was drawing attention to this shallowness of judgement that the human race maintain, and this is only highlighted by the small-town America setting. Through Catherine’s eyes we are given a glimpse of each person’s pasts, and it is no accident that these cause us, and Catherine, to suspect every single character as the murderer. I found this light-hearted suspicious narrative surrounding even Catherine’s closest friends slightly hard to deal with at first – how could she suspect people she’d known for years? And why was she still comfortable to be alone with them and even openly discuss her suspicions if they were sincere? However, the consistence of this is not a casual oversight of Olshan’s – it comments on the inability of the individual to escape any aspect of their past whilst placing them in the wider environment of the gossip-fuelled, dysfunctional nature of such close-knit, small communities such as Cloudland.

Whilst we have picked the book up at the start of what is to be a disturbing detective story, we have also picked it up in the middle of Catherine’s slowly unravelling life. I realised that she was not becoming less stable as the book went on, it was merely becoming more apparent as she revealed more intimate secrets from her past. With crime fiction being so huge today, plots have to more and more complex and intricate, characters have to be more developed, crime writers can no longer rely on creepy clichés – readers are becoming more perverse. Joseph Olshan has managed to fulfil this criteria and more. I’ve only picked up on a few of my favourite themes, but really there is a whole trove of them: from extreme religion to homosexuality to literary influences, Olshan manages to cover an inordinate amount, and in sufficient depth, all within the frame of a detective novel.

A detective novel in the eyes of a mere onlooker, a simple concept that has created a fascinating work of literature which kept my mind spinning for days – even after the culprit was revealed. After this introduction, the crime fiction genre has A LOT to live up to for me!

Read it now: get it here