Viviane

January 13, 2014
On the surface, Viviane Élisabeth Fauville appears unassuming: she is 42 years old, recently separated from her husband, and on maternity leave from her PR job at a Paris concrete company. In Deck’s debut, originally published by France’s prestigious Les ditions de Minuit (which seldom publishes first novels), Deck presents a protagonist who, although she blends into the commuter-clogged Metro cars and sidewalks of contemporary Paris, is struggling to make sense of her implication in her psychoanalyst’s murder. The novel filters this gruesome event through Viviane, an unreliable narrator who thinks she sees her deceased mother on sidewalks and in taxis. Meanwhile, the novel shifts from second-, to third-, to first-person, to first-person-plural narration (“There’s this child on our hands and we wonder how it happened”), suggesting that Viviane suffers from a split personality disorder. All this seems proof enough that Viviane is as guilty as she is unstable. But Deck resists closing the case, and this ambiguity, along with certain narrative techniques, like opening two consecutive chapters with almost identical sentences, create uncertainty in the reader. Deck’s novel, which was widely lauded in France, complimented by Coverdale’s unobtrusive translation, burrows deftly and unrelentingly into a troubled mind.

February 15, 2014
This debut by a French novelist puts a mystery inside a narrative puzzle. An epigram from Samuel Beckett introduces this slim novel about the titular protagonist and occasional narrator, a 42-year-old woman who recently gave birth to her first child. She suffers from severe panic attacks and receives medication. Within the narrative, Viviane is more often referred to as "you," though sometimes as "I" or "we," and occasionally she refers to herself as "Elisabeth." Viviane is plainly mad, which means "you" are as well, as "you" (the reader) attempt to discern the motivation behind the crime that the protagonist may (or may not) have committed. "[T]hat's just what she wants, to bring some order to her memory," says the narrative at a point where Viviane has become "she." "Instead of coming to light, however, events are retreating ever deeper into darkness." This much is relatively clear: Viviane's husband has separated from her, perhaps because of a younger woman, perhaps because Viviane is crazy, perhaps because the marriage was a mistake from the beginning. Or perhaps all of the preceding. She feels that younger women are a threat to her in the workplace as well as in her marriage: "You know that you're not twenty anymore and that young women are lying in ambush, ready to take your place and wring your neck." Affairs abound in the novel, generally between older men and younger women, complicating the plot and adding to intrigue on various levels. At one point, a man who may or may not be having one of these affairs is described (presumably by Viviane) as "either really handsome or absolutely not." The plot's mystery resolves itself in surprising fashion, but mysteries of language, consciousness, identity and perspective remain impenetrable. At one point, even the baby is "trying to solve the mystery of causes and consequences," which puzzled readers will immediately find relatable.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.