Reticence

"A little thing happened to me. Which could have just as easily happened to you. You're on vacation in a hotel with your son in a small village and you're about to go see some friends, but something holds you back, a mysterious reticence that prevents you from going to find them. Here is the novel of this reticence, small and specific, and of the fears that it instigates, little by little. Because not only are your friends not there when you do decide to go find them, but, several days later, you find a dead cat in the harbor, a black cat floating in front of you on the water . . ."

In Jean-Philippe Toussaint's take on the detective novel, we find a man on vacation in a tiny village, where a writer named Biaggi appears to be keeping him under surveillance. To what end? Ah, but it's far more pleasant to enjoy the Mediterranean night air than to look for answers, make deductions, or get upset--isn't it?

In Reticence, a man on vacation seems to be under surveillance. But it's far more pleasant to enjoy the Mediterranean than to look for answers, make deductions, or get upset--isn't it?

Jean-Philippe Toussaint is the author of nine novels, and the winner of numerous literary prizes, including the Prix Décembre for The Truth about Marie. His writing has been compared to the works of Samuel Beckett, Jacques Tati, the films of Jim Jarmusch, and even Charlie Chaplin.A native of Vancouver, John Lambert studied philosophy in Paris before moving to Berlin, where he lives with his wife and two children. Translator, journalist, philosophy teacher, and actor, he has translated Jean-Philippe Toussaint's Monsieur and Self-Portrait Abroad.