"This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway … This is the road to hell"

The A26 by Pascal Garnier

Quite a few bloggers (notably Stu and recently Guy) have already discovered and loved the novels of Pascal Garnier, the French author of some decidedly bleak, black comedies of the purest noir! Having acquired a couple of them, I picked his short novel The A26 to begin my own exploration.

Set in the 1990s, this is the story of an ageing pair – brother and sister – Bernard and Yolande. Bernard works for SNCF, the French railways, and has terminal cancer. He has now finished work:

As for his boss and his colleagues, he knew he wouldn’t be seeing them again. It was no sadder than casting off an old pair of slippers. In taking leave, he had married death – that was why life had so often made him suffer. Now he would say ‘yes’ to everything, good and bad, sunshine and grey skies alike; this November afternoon it was the latter.

It’s that decision to say ‘yes’ to everything that is driving Bernard now – and for his remaining days, in doing that he will get his own back on the cards that life had dealt him. Bernard never married, he lost his love to another long ago when he had to look after Yolande.

Yolande never leaves the house. They live in gloom, for in the entire house there is only one opening on the outside world – ‘a hole made specially’ in the shutter. Yolande has never been the same since she was dragged from the house in 1945 to have her head shaved, accused of a liaison with a German. She’s a hoarder, never throwing anything away, obsessively cooking or watching the world through her pinhole…

Yolande could have been anywhere from twenty to seventy. She had the blurry texture and outlines of an old photograph. As if she were covered in a fine dust. Inside this wreck of an old woman there was a young girl.

The whole area has been blighted by the building of a new motorway, the A26, driving a swathe of mud and concrete through the land; life isn’t the same and when Bernard’s thoughts turn murderous, it provides the ideal place to dispose of things… (one is reminded of the Vogon Constructor Fleet’s mission to drive an intergalactic highway through Earth in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).

What Bernard does may be very nasty, but Garnier elicits some pathos in us for him, in the same way that John Wayne as the terminally ill gunslinger in the film The Shootist seeks to regain his dignity in death.

The A26 is just 100 pages long and we learn all we need to from Bernard and Yolande, of their lives and loves all lost. There’s no wastage in this slim volume. It’s a very black story indeed but with touches of comedy that always surprise you and a plot that keeps you guessing until the end. Translator Melanie Florence has done a splendid job to maintain the French feel.

The A26 connects Calais and Troyes to the southwest of Paris.  It is known as L’Autoroute des Anglais and I’m glad Garnier’s books have made it over the channel to us thanks to Gallic Books –  I’ve yet to read a volume from them that hasn’t delivered.  Deliciously dark, funny and complex, I’m going to have to read a lot more by Pascal Garnier. (9/10)

P.S. Title quote from ‘The Road to Hell’ by Chris Rea.

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The A26by Pascal Garnier, trans Melanie Florence. Gallic Books 2013. Paperback, 100 pages.

14 thoughts on “"This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway … This is the road to hell"

  1. calmgrove says:

    I too found this a perfectly formed little narrative, though its black humour and bleak outlook don’t appeal to all. Good summative assessment.

  2. kaggsysbookishramblings says:

    I do like the sound of this Annabel – and since I’m stuck reading translated fiction at the moment for some reason, I might well track it down. I do like a bit of darkness in my reading!

  3. jacquiwine says:

    I also discovered Garnier through Stu and Guy’s blogs, and I think it was Stu’s review that prompted me to try The A26 a couple of years ago. It’s such a tight little story, not an ounce of fat, and I do like the way this author conveys a sense of empathy for his characters alongside the mordant humour. If you’re looking at others, ‘How’s the Pain?’ and ‘Moon in a Dead Eye’ are excellent.

  4. MarinaSofia says:

    I’m also a big Garnier fan (the writer, not the shampoo, I mean). The A26 wasn’t perhaps my favourite, but all of his stories have that taut, surreal quality, with glimpses of very dark humour. And sudden, unexpected explosions of violence. A bit like Claude Chabrol films. I also recommend ‘How’s the Pain?’ and ‘The Panda Theory’ or ‘The Front Seat Passenger’.

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