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Slanderous tongue not in cheek |
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Friday, 16 May 2008 |
There seem to be two ways
of writing a book about
French life: the Peter Mayle
cuddly reportage based on
village life and local wines,
or the Joanne Harris slightly
less cuddly fiction based on
village life and local cuisine.
Whichever way you prefer to
go, it’s nice to know that your
villagers never stop being
somewhat cuddly and never
stop eating and drinking.
Now along comes Jill
Culiner. No cuddles, very
little food and what wines are
consumed seem to curdle in
the mouth. Her village is
peopled by a hairdrier
murderer, a group of ratty old
gossipmongers, a slattern
trapped in her own spiderweb
of ineffectual daydreams and
transparent lies, a chic couple
of chicken torturers, a profitloving,
concrete-mixing
mayor whose construction
company giveth while it
taketh away, a victim who
might have screwed one
partner of whichever sex too
many, a dog named Werewolf
and a narrator who writes out
of the side of her mouth.
In fact, so Mickey
Spillane is Culiner’s prose
that you can see the cigarette
bobbing in her mouth as she
talks you through her village
of Epineux-le-Rainsouin
(from various passing
mutters, we place the village
just north of Nantes). But
don’t expect Spillanesque
fisticuffs and gunshots in
the night.
Although the prose is
North American – Culiner is
a Canadian writer and
photographer (the haunting
jacket photo is hers) who
divides her time between
there and here – the mood is
très Gallic, very Georges
Simenon, the watcher in the
shadows cupping the
cigarette in the hand to stop
the glow from being reflected
in the rainwater
puddles…And like Simenon
– or Ruth Rendell – the
dénouement is suppressed
almost to vanishing point: no
midnight car chase, no
wailing sirens, no final clink
of cuffs on villainous wrists.
Be warned, though : if
reading this book has one
effect on you, it will probably
be an insistance that any
chicken you eat henceforth
shall be free-range.
If you love France enough
to recognise that it has a
seamy side, an underbelly –
you’ll face this book with a
jaunty anticipation.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to
search it out as best you can,
because the imprint, Sumach
Press, is Canadian.
Slanderous Tongue
by Jill Culiner
Sumach Press 2007: 248 pp.,
softcover.
$16.95 US and Canadian
www.sumachpress.com
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