A war criminal returns to the scene of the crime

It's 1999 and Emile Poulquet awaits sentencing in a Paris court for deporting thousands to almost certain death during World War II. But haunted by ghosts from his past, and determined to confront his dark legacy, he escapes and heads toward his beloved Finier, a rural town in the south of France where he once served as prefect. His return will have explosive consequences.

In Finier, Poulquet finds shelter within the strange embrace of a group of teenage wastrels, and encounters new breeds of idealism, degeneracy, and friendship. He sets out to find Arianne — a lifelong obsession and the widow of a Resistance hero — in order to hand her his last will and testament. But as he begins his quest, he cannot help being drawn, inexorably, toward another circle of refugees and reporters in town for a wartime reunion. He doesn't yet know that his worst betrayal — and the greatest test of his own ability to pardon another — is yet to come.

By turns epic and intimate, reflective and slyly humorous, Crawl Space limns the gray zone between past and future. Edie Meidav poignantly describes one man's tragic attempt to come to terms with the past.

"Meidav embeds the reader in the mind of a narcissistic, self-loathing, obsessive, vengeful narrator — a French Nazi collaborator — whose oddly compelling voice is the achievement of this complex novel (after The Far Field). As prefect of the small town of Finier during WWII, Emile Poulquet zealously helped the Nazis compile lists of Jews for deportation to concentration camps. In 1999, at the age of 84 and after decades as a fugitive, Poulquet eludes conviction in a Paris trial — the intervening years and reconstructive facial surgery make him unidentifiable by witnesses. He then returns to Finier to exact revenge on the object of his obsession, Arianne Fauret, a resistance widow whom he considers a lifelong tormentor. His mad scheme is to make Arianne — who now directs a foundation to reclaim war memory — the executor of his last will and testament, thereby forcing her to accept his version of personal and historical events. Meidav's narrative jumps from Poulquet's wartime years to the more convoluted story of his modern-day return to Finier, when he falls in with a band of misfit teenage squatters, and events come to a head around a wartime memorial event. With a tale both chilling and comical, Meidav considers the struggle to define history." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Meidav embeds the reader in the mind of a narcissistic, self-loathing, obsessive, vengeful narrator...whose oddly compelling voice is the achievement of this complex novel....With a tale both chilling and comical, Meidav considers the struggle to define history." Publishers Weekly

"In her new novel, Edie Meidav has created a vivid panorama of the modern world, refracted through an amazingly intricate character. The secrets of history, the unrequited loves and betrayals, the disgraces and disappointments and confusions — all are revived for Emile Poulquet, who, in trying to escape his past, runs headlong into the trap of memory and guilt. Crawl Space is the work of a fearless writer with a cosmic imagination." Joanna Scott

In her energy as a writer, Meidav floats so many issues, throws so many balls in the air, that she runs the risk of anti-climax. Can the final meeting with Arianne, for example, carry the weight Poulquet puts on it as he travels toward it? Some novelists have the capacity, the narrative goodwill and the generosity to override and allay such readerly qualms. In this accomplished novel, Meidav shows herself to be one of that happy company. Given how long we wait to read Poulquet's will and testament, it's a relief when its content is both sufficiently enlightening and cunning that it succeeds as a device. Thomas Keneally, Washington Post, August, 2005

"Emile Poulquet, age 84, a former official of France's World War II Vichy regime, condemned thousands of fellow citizens to death camps. After decades of hiding and several plastic surgeries, he is apprehended and tried but not convicted for lack of anyone who could identify him. After escaping from the Paris prison in which he might be taken for a new trial, Poulquet returns to the scene of his crimes, a town in southern France. This quintessential French bureaucrat spends the rest of the novel rationalizing his conduct while tracking down past acquaintances. Meeting up with a band of teenage "wastrels" who offer shelter and companionship, he little suspects that he faces the biggest betrayal of all. Meidav . . . skillfully exposes the criminal mind that refuses to accept responsibility for its acts and instead blames the victim. A highly impressive and original treatment of the Holocaust; recommended for all literary and French history collections." Edward Cone, New York, Library Journal, July, 2005

By turns epic and intimate, reflective and slyly humorous, Meidav's new novel limns the gray zone between past and future, and it poignantly describes one man's tragic attempt to come to terms with the past.

Edie Meidav is the author of The Far Field, called "ambitious and distinguished" by the Los Angeles Times. She lives in California, where she teaches at the New College of California.