Lune captive dans un œil mort

by Pascal Garnier

Les Conviviales, une résidence de luxe pour seniors, promet cadre paradisiaque, confort et sécurité. Le lieu parfait pour Martial et Odette qui rêvent de couler des jours paisibles et ensoleillés. Oui, mais... En réalité, aux Conviviales, il pleut toute la journée, on tue des chats à coups de pelle, les voisins sont sérieusement névrosés et les balles fusent... La retraite dorée tourne au cauchemar.

Genres: France, Fiction, Crime, Noir, Novella, Mystery, Literature

160 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 8, 2009

About the author

Pascal Garnier, who died in March 2010, was a talented novelist, short story writer, children’s author and painter. From his home in the mountains of the Ardèche, he wrote fiction in a noir palette with a cast of characters drawn from ordinary provincial life. Though his writing is often very dark in tone, it sparkles with quirkily beautiful imagery and dry witted humour. Garnier’s work has been likened to the great thriller writer, Georges Simenon. Gallic books has now published many of his titles, including - The Panda Theory, How’s the Pain?, The Islanders, Moon in a Dead Eye, and The Front Seat Passenger.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

LES CONVIVIALES:
THE RETIREMENT VILLAGE EXPERTS
Les Conviviales offers a fresh approach to retirement, allowing you to spend an active life in the sunshine. Here's a taste of what you'll find at Les Conviviales:

A SECURE GATED COMMUNITY
There's nothing quite like knowing you're protected and secure. With a dedicated caretaker-manager on site 365 days of the year, our residents can enjoy total peace of mind.

Pascal Garnier's black humor runneth over. The French crime author begins his novel with the above marketing plug for a retirement community in the south of France.

A fresh approach to retirement? Of course, such an approach boldly assumes, among other things, the mental stability of the residents - hardly a given for Pascal Garnier.

Anyone familiar with the author's noir novels will roll their eyes and chuckle, knowing the men and women who sign up to live in this community will be anything but protected and secure.

In the first pages we're given a foretaste of the peace of mind residents can expect with the aforementioned dedicated caretaker-manager, a gruff, beefy lout by the name of Monsieur Flesh.

Additional brief marketing blurbs laud homes equipped with all the modern amenities, the community's strategically located CCTV cameras, its clubhouse, its swimming pool, its social director arranging an assortment of activities and day trips - in a word, everything needed for a comfortable, happy life.

Counterpoint to sales pitches, the narrator peppers in caustic commentary, a sobering reality check. "The fifty or so little houses were lined up obediently on either side of a wide road, with gravel paths leading off to each house. Viewed from the air, it must have looked something like a fish skeleton."

I read the book and listened to the audio book twice. Once a reader clicks into the story's gallows humor, every page provides ample opportunities to laugh out loud, understanding not only will future residents become part of what the seller calls an ideal retirement community, but those unsuspecting souls have also entered a Pascal Garnier novel. Good luck, folks! You will certainly need it.

The first retirees to take up residence are Martial and Odette, a married couple who escaped their Parisian suburban neighborhood now overrun by screaming kids. However, stripped of their prior habits - going to market on Saturday, taking a stroll on Sunday, etc. etc. - in their isolation, they spend most of the day and evening sitting in front of the TV.

When they get wind of a new couple moving in across the street, their new game is guessing what their new neighbors will be like. And when those vivacious, trim newbies settle in, the group of four are all abuzz about their next new neighbor scheduled to become part of their community - a single woman. Ah, a single woman! The ladies think she must be a widow but the men are not so quick to agree.

When single woman Léa finally arrives, the resident community's varicose vein quintet is complete and Pascal Garnier can weave his noir magic.

Actually, the quintet becomes a sextet when another gal enters their gated community shortly thereafter - fortyish, artsy Nadine driving her little red Renault Clio. Nadine isn't a new resident; she's the group's recreational director. What a honey!

To prepare herself for his initial session with the residents, Nadine lights a joint and treats herself to a few puffs of home-grown weed. After all, she needs something to buck herself up with "before walking into the lions' den - even if the lions were toothless."

In his New York Review Books essay on Pascal Garnier's crime novels, John Banville wrote, "the general run of Garnier’s people consider themselves to be—well, the general run. They get on as best they can with their quotidian lives, hardly conscious of the anarchic and, more often than not, murderous urges boiling away behind their unremarkable exteriors. Even the most eccentric among them would insist that it is not they who are the problem—the world is." Oh, wow! John Banville's observations hit the bullseye - spot-on for Moon in a Dead Eye.

Pick up a copy. This short novel can be read in a day. You just might become an instant Pascal Garnier fan.



I wonder if Odette pictures herself as the above belly dancer when she reflects how she "felt like learning something, but she wasn't sure what. Italian, ikebana, yoga, belly dancing, Turkish cookery, surgery - anything, as long as it was new! So much time on her hands . . . Every day felt as long as a Sunday. This was her time, hers and no one else's, and she could do whatever she liked with it. Yet the vast virgin territory bestowed upon her was no more than a big lump of ice floating on an ocean of emptiness, melting a little more each day."


French author Pascal Garnier, 1949-2010

[Ray Nessly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread February 2024. I've read 6 of his short novels, and this one remains my favorite. Added to my Favorites shelf. (I try to refrain from adding a book to this shelf until I've read it at least a second time.) I made additional notes and had intended (see: road to hell) to update this review, but I'll be too busy, for a month or two, to do that. My previous review, though, is an in depth one. So I hope you'll read it and be convinced to give it a try.
------------

Read May 2022. Edited July 2022. Reposted Nov 2022 (pairs pretty well, methinks, with my Venice Train review.)

‘Horribly funny … appalling and bracing in equal measure. Masterful’-- John Banville

‘A mixture of Albert Camus and JG Ballard’-- Financial Times

‘A master of the surreal noir thriller – Luis Buñuel meets Georges Simenon’-- Times Literary Supplement
.......................................................................

“Bland bungalows ran along both sides of the road like so many polished gravestones ... It was as though they had bought themselves a ticket to the afterlife; they no longer had a future. Which just went to show you could do perfectly well without one.”
–Pascal Garnier, Moon in a Dead Eye


This short novel—only 127 pages— is my first by this author. I’ll be back. (edit 11/22: a man of my word, I soon read two more Garnier books). Packed into this tiny package are generous helpings of Noir, ink-black humor, irony, Hitchcock-ish horror, a crime or two, the surreal and the absurd, and my rave-fave genre: senior citizens coping with existential dread. Thus proving, it's never too late for ennui n' angst.

The players are: Martial and Odette Sudette, childless “escapees from suburban Paris” (ha-ha, what a dump!), first occupants of Les Conviviales, a gated retirement community somewhere in the greener pastures of southern France. Gruff, mysterious Monsieur Flesh is the sole employee at first. The community promises: “With a dedicated caretaker-manager on site 365 days of the year, our residents can enjoy total peace of mind” (ha, another good one.) Soon, make that very soon (the novel moves quickly throughout; there’s hardly an extraneous word) they are joined by toothy-grinned Maxime Node, and his wife Marlene, who once dreamed of being a ballerina. They have a white piano neither of them plays, and they have a son, whom they speak of, but … (no spoiler from me). Next comes Lea, she's single, but perhaps not as available as the guys might think. Last, Nadine, the community’s activities director. She is not much younger than the others, and she's rather unusually fond of pot.

Okay. Some of these folks are nice, some not so nice. Some are passive, others take charge. They are variably violent, variably prone to madness. They mix exactly as well as you might expect.

Also appearing are:
persistent rain
just as persistent heat
still more persistent flies,not all of them invisible/imaginary
one dead cat
one caravan of gypsies. Then five, then ten, then fifteen. Spoiler (not actually): they’re nice.

A gun appears in Act One, as it were. Chekhov is smiling.
The title, Moon in a Dead Eye, doesn’t go to waste either.

A favorite segment is on pages 97-99. Alas, too long to type, but do check it out. Reveals the silent Mssr. Flesh’s rich if uncommonly-disturbed inner life. Understatement? Yes. I think H. Bosch must've peeked inside F's head.

excerpt: “Nature's a funny old thing, it does whatever it pleases. He had always been a little afraid of it. He tiptoed into forests, speaking in a whisper, as though entering a church. Nature was mysterious, incomprehensible, impenetrable, off limits, like the ladies' toilets.”

Recommended* for: everybody, but maybe especially, fans of T.C. Boyle. I'd even recommend it to the man himself. This is so reminiscent, isn't it?, of Boyle's numerous tales of folks seeking greener grass, only to find things go horribly wrong.
*Later, my wife (who never reads my reviews), read and loved the book. She said, unprompted, "You know what this reminds me of? T.C. Boyle." Peas in a pod.

I expect to read more by this author, and am encouraged by the following. It's borrowed from Glenn Russell’s fine (as always) review: “In his New York Review of Books essay on Pascal Garnier's crime novels, John Banville wrote, 'the general run of Garnier’s people consider themselves to be—well, the general run. They get on as best they can with their quotidian lives, hardly conscious of the anarchic and, more often than not, murderous urges boiling away behind their unremarkable exteriors. Even the most eccentric among them would insist that it is not they who are the problem—the world is.' "

FYI, a quick overview of Garnier's novels. (I'm not reading them in the "recommended" order though) https://crimereads.com/the-dark-stran...

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shot through with surrealism this darkly farcical tale was a cracking little French read and centers on a fussy old couple who move into a brand new gated retirement village, they turn out to be the first ones there so it doesn't take long for boredom to set in. Then some new arrivals show up and things are looking more cozy as the group get to know each each other in their peaceful surroundings. But the tranquillity does not last and soon they are at each others throats, the days are getting irritatingly hotter, some gypsies have set up camp outside their gates, and there is also something rather odd about their security guard, who may be hiding a dark personality. It was only a matter of time before they start to crack!. This reads as black comedy mostly and has some really funny dialogue where I was genuinely laughing out loud. It's never predictable and this only adds to it's unsettling nature. Your just waiting for things to kick off, and boy doesn't it just! As for the ending, mad and bad!

Superb short novel, wickedly chilling, with a large helping of bone dry humour.

[merixien · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5Bu kitabı ismi çok ilgimi çektiği için incelemiştim. Açıkcası konusu da merak uyandırınca almıştım. Bugün de 800 sayfalık Sekizinci Hayat’ı taşımak yerine yanıma almak için kendisini seçtim.

Cennetteki Yeryüzü. emekli bir çiftin kendilerini devamlı tatilde gibi hissetmek için taşındıkları bir sitedeki birkaç haftalarının hikayesi. Önce eve taşınma sebepleri, sonra sitedeki yalnızlıkları ve yavaş yavaş gelen komşularla tanışıp kaynaşmalarını takip ediyorsunuz. Aslında çok ilginç karakterlerle oluşturulmuş, yüksek güvenlik ile çevrili kapalı sistem site yaşamlarına ve insanların iç dünyaya kapanmalarına dair etkili bir hiciv. Ancak ben kitabı okurken bitmiş bir romandan ziyade bir taslağı okuyor gibi hissettim. Bazı bölümler anlatılırken, sanki “bunu daha sonra detaylandırırım” diye düşünülüp bir sonraki bölüme geçilmiş gibi hissettim. Zaten çok kısa, bir kuaför ziyareti-saç boyanması sürecinde bitiyor. Ancak bana biraz hızlıca bitirilmiş gibi geldi. Açıkcası Odette ve Lea hakkında biraz daha detay öğrenmek istedim. Bir yandan da, kitabın da o yüksek güvenlikli siteler gibi yalnızca uzaktan göründüğü kadarını verip, detaylarını gizleme alegorisi açısından takdir edilebilir. Yorucu bir okumadan sonra dinlenmek için, ya da benim gibi bir bekleme süresini değerlendirmek için ideal kitaplardan.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a well-written review of this book by a GR friend, and was intrigued so I ordered the book. Overall, I was impressed…3.75 stars, rounded up to a 4. 😊

The book started out slow...but let’s face it, it was only 127 pages. And there might have been a reason for the slow pace….I was lulled into thinking the characters were boring and normal. Yeesh, after finishing the book, I’m inclined to ask “who’s normal?!”

A fairly small cast of characters. The setting is a retirement village of some 50 look-alike houses located in the Midi (southern France) and the first set of occupants of the village are:
• Martial and Odette, husband and wife. Odette at middle of the story starts seeing a singular fly and is bothered by it….as far as I can recall nobody else sees it.
• Maxine and Marlene, husband and wife, who also have a son Regis, and accomplished musician who plays a white piano…although perhaps using the present tense may put me in error. Who knows? I shan’t tell you. 😉
• Lea, who is single…Maxine is initially attracted to her…wonder if there are shenanigans between them?

Then because this is a creepy spooky story, you must have a groundskeeper of the village who is taciturn and looks like a brute, and that is Monsieur Flesh.

To round things out, there is the social director of the retirement village, Nadine, who works there one day a week, and is somewhat younger than the retirees. She enjoys cannabis.

Oh and let’s not forget those damn gypsies who set up camp outside the gated community! We all know what they are capable of!

One or more characters don’t make it out alive come the story’s end. How that comes about…well as you know you are barking up the wrong tree if you want that information.

Oh, by the way, Monsieur Flesh kills a cat with a spade right in front of Odette and Marlene and when questioned why did just didn’t just chase it away he says “And then it would have come back, bringing another one with it, and then another…Believe me, I know what I’m doing. It’s for your own good.” Marlene: “But really with a spade…” Monsieur Flesh: “When you do a dirty job, you have the right to do it the dirty way. Have a good day, ladies.”😯

At times this book reminded me of the Stranger by Albert Camus, because of the stifling heat that occurs during the days…and no rain. So after becoming aware of the similarity and knowing what happened in that book, and knowing that Garnier has been compared to Georges Simenon I knew this wasn’t going to have a happily-ever-after ending.

This book (titled in French, Lune captive dans un oeil mort) was published when Garnier was 60 years old, one year before his death (2010). It was translated by Emily Boyce, and published in 2013 by Gallic Books.

Reviews:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...
review by JacquiWine who has reviewed on Goodreads and writes very good reviews: https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2014...
https://swiftlytiltingplanet.wordpres...

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every so often I find myself wanting something just a little bit stronger than coffee. Is that so unforgivable? Unfortunately, five-hour energy doesn't work for me- those mini-bottles certainly catch the eye, sitting there by the register in Wawa in myriad colors and flavors, but all they seem to do in practice is make me more tired. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't be impossible for me to make use of my long-standing and extremely shadowy ties with the New Jersey underworld, the very same ties that torpedoed my run for Congress before it even began, but in the time of coronavirus a friend of mine who is a habitual smoker of weed has trouble enough even getting hold of that.

I have noticed, however, that each of French author Pascal Garnier's (1949-2010) novels takes about five hours to read, and each one tends to fire up the adrenaline, although of course there's a certain inefficiency in taking five hours to achieve an effect that may not last even that long. But this is the third of Garnier's novels that I've read, and I suppose I like it just about as much as I liked the other two, Boxes and A Long Way Off. Like five-hour energy, these novels are slickly marketed, in this case by Gallic Books of London; they're almost pocket-sized, the covers are colorful and evocative, and they promise a specific experience, perhaps just as familiar to the synapses as caffeine: "noir, in the tradition of Georges Simenon"...or your money back, presumably.

I can't speak to the tradition of Georges Simenon, although I do notice an irreverence and a dark humor in Garnier's work that I didn't get much of a sense of from Red Lights, the only novel of Simenon's I've read. Furthermore, none of the Garnier novels that I've read really meet my expectation of "noir"...but that's for the better as far as I'm concerned, because one of the things I've enjoyed about all three is the feeling that the narrative isn't boxed in by genre, that it's capable of going anywhere.

Moon in a Dead Eye includes some other familiar elements from Boxes and A Long Way Off: retreat into fantasy as the result of personal loss; perverse curiosity about violence; the effect of isolation on the psyche; and characters in late middle age, in this case a married couple who are the first to move into a new retirement community in the south of France, who then spend their days anxiously anticipating/dreading the next arrivals. I particularly enjoyed the way Garnier subtly evokes the unnatural creepiness of such a place, the identical homes and the structured activities and the CCTV cameras everywhere. The small community naturally descends into paranoia (focused especially on some gypsies who set up camp down the road), murder, and someone's eyeball lying in the grass, and even the woman hired to lead the group in fun, structured activities can't stem the tide of blood. But even as the madness unfolds, it seems to me that Garnier is shrugging and chuckling about it all. Who knows, maybe that's a healthy attitude.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 3 out of 5]

süper lüks güvenlikli bir emeklilik sitesinde yaşananlar... oldukça eleştirel bir bakış açısı varsa da olayların fazla hızlı gelişmesi, birçok karakterde açıklanamayan davranışlar -sinek, donup kalma- bu eleştirinin çok da derinleşememesini sağlamış bence.
onun dışında memlekette steril beyaz hayatlardan, gecekonduların dibine dikilmiş dikenli telli lüks sitelerden ne kadar nefret ediyorsam bu siteden de ettim :)
üst orta sınıfın kaçıp geldiği kaygıların bazıları romanda kendini gösterdi ki bence çingeneler romanın kilit noktasıydı ve iyi bir motifti.

[Larnacouer de SH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canınız sıkkınken araya alabileceğiniz akıcı ve keyifli bir kitap arıyorsanız buldunuz! Hatta duruma göre tek oturuşta bitirebilir, zaman zaman ee şimdi ne olacak diyebilirsiniz bile. Belki hatrınızda sonsuza dek yer etmez ama kapağını görünce ay yaaa falan dersiniz bence.

Böyle bir şeye çok ihtiyacım vardı bu nedenle nerdeyse tam puan.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another enjoyable Garnier "noir" (not really the right label but I can't think of anything better). Very slight Ballardian flavour with small group of retirees settling in a new purpose built complex in the south of France. Bad things happen - of course

[Meltem Sağlam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kolay okunan, akıcı bir metin.

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five retirees move into a gated community called Les Conviviales, which boasts sunshine, great security measures, a caretaker-manager who’s there all year around, and a clubhouse with a social secretary and more.
Sounds fantastic, right?
Very early on, the author lets us know all is not well.
It rains constantly in the first few months, there is an issue with the gate( which the author returns to later in the book), the social club is not even open.
However, you get a sense that worse is yet to come. The hints are very deftly woven into the prose. I think this is my favourite part about Pascal Garnier’s writing, the sun, the rain, the furniture, the pool, the sky, the moon and people’s thoughts all play a huge part in driving the plot and in building up the mood and the existential dread. It draws you in and keeps you on edge.

And indeed things are getting bizarre and ominous.
A traumatizing incident involving the taciturn caretaker and a cat leaves one of the residents (Odette) tormented by a fly visible only to herself (reminds me of the” you’ve got flies in your eyes” part in Catch-22, I wonder if Garnier was a fan of Joesph Heller, I would not be surprised at all if he was).
The single woman Lea sometimes goes into a trance like state.
There is the perceived danger posed by the Gypsies camping outside of the community.
There are also the misfire by Maxime, Martial’s weird obsession on the exact revolver that Maxime fired and the dark perverse inner monologue from the seemingly emotionless caretaker.
There is also something with Maxime’s wife Marlene, but that part contains spoiler.

To sum it up with a conversation between Martial and Maxime:

‘Why us? There’s nothing out of the ordinary about us. We’re just normal people.’
‘Really? How many “normal” people do you know? Everyone’s got a few skeletons in the cupboard.’

Then all culminate in a killing and an even bigger catastrophe towards the end.

All the characters are well written, some of them more devious than other. However, in my opinion, another silent villain here is the “gate”, or to be more precise, what the gate represents…the residents’ detachment from the past, their alienation from the outside world and their mental state of being “trapped”. The gate is supposed to safeguard them but the irony is that the real danger lies within.

I picked up this book two days ago after reading Ray Nessly’s wonderful review, and finished it in two sittings.
Dark humour, absurdity, and a great story….just my cup of tea.
I am so glad that I discovered Pascal Garnier, I am also quite sad to realize that he passed away in 2010.
I will read more of his books in the future.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five elderly people move into a gated community, Les Conviviales, expecting that many others will follow. Instead, as the weeks and months go by, there are just empty houses. They have only themselves for company -- themselves and the inscrutable, rather threatening caretaker and the cheery social secretary. As we slowly discover, each of them -- with the possible exception of the social secretary -- is in his or her own way secretly quite bonkers. When a gypsy encampment arrives nearby, it's enough to stir up the various insanities to eventually lethal effect.

Although the term "grim satire" is commonly used to describe this short novel, that's not the way it came across to me. I found it instead to be a wonderful Wodehousian farce (except I laughed a lot more at this than I usually do at Wodehouse), but a farce that manages to encompass, still as farce, some moments of tragedy and indeed a tragic conclusion. The funniest and most Wodehousian sequence for me was the one where Maxime, a lecherous cad and blithering idiot, tries to teach the reluctant Martial how to play golf. (Since it involves golf, I wondered if it might indeed be a Wodehouse homage.) Garnier's skill is such that he even tells you the outcome of this episode beforehand -- gives away the punchline, so to speak -- and yet it's still uproariously funny when it happens.

I shouldn't forget to mention that Emily Boyce's translation is quite splendid.

If you're in search of a tautly plotted piece of dark noir, then this probably isn't the place to look -- in fact, I'm sure that by this time next week I'll have forgotten most of the plot of Moon in a Dead Eye. But what I won't forget in a hurry is being in the company of these characters in the prison of their exclusive gated community, and the fun I had.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read quite a few of Pascal Garnier’s short (novella sized) crime stories. Gallic Noir tales full of gallows humor, unsavory characters, and shocking plot twists. The problem is there are only about 10 or so translated out of his 60 plus works. I have been savoring them. After Moon in a Dead Eye I only have one left and am constantly hoping that a new set of translations will arrive at some time.

Garnier, to provide a reference, has a style that can be likened to a cross between James Elroy and James M. Cain. Obviously he is an original in his own right, but that gives a new reader an idea. In my opinion he is required reading for anyone who enjoys mystery/crime fiction and is a master level noir writer.

Garnier is so dark and twisted (at least his stories are!) that he can take a concept like a retirement community and turn it into something sinister and foreboding. As with most of his stories the characters (fully realized and completely believable characters) are damaged with secrets and hidden agendas that eat away at their peace of mind and color their actions. You can also be sure that no matter how idyllic the situation, very soon (these are novellas so the action comes on fast) the crap is going to hit the fan and the whole thing will wind up getting darker by the minute.

I only have one Garnier book left and am desperately waiting more translations. He is as good as it gets when it comes to noir/crime novelists, in my opinion.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The joys of ageing...

When their city neighbourhood begins to change and all their elderly friends gradually retire to quieter places, or die, Odette and Martial decide it's time to buy a little retirement home in a gated community. Odette is keen to move, Martial less so. The community is newly built and Odette and Martial are the first couple to move in. Early impressions are hampered by the constant rain while, until more people move in, the swimming pool and clubhouse remain closed. But there is a caretaker, though given his creepiness that's a bit of a mixed blessing. However, things perk up a bit when another couple and then a single woman move in, and the clubhouse is finally opened complete with a social secretary to provide a bit of fun. Thrown together in this isolated place, all the residents quickly become friends. But then the gypsies arrive...

I've had a bit of a mixed journey with Pascal Garnier so far. I enjoyed Boxes, loved The A26, and sadly wasn't very taken with this one at all. It follows the same kind of format as the others – set up the characters, put them in a slightly odd, isolated situation, then make some terrible things happen to them. The writing is as good as ever, the quirky characterisation is great and there's the same vein of humour, growing increasingly blacker as the novella progresses. Perhaps I've just read them too closely together, but I felt this one was rather like painting by numbers.

The first bit of the book is great. The description of this couple trying to settle into their new lives rings very true. Martial in particular misses the busyness of his old home, where he knew everybody and only had to walk down the street to meet acquaintances. Now he finds it hard to find anything to fill his days. The story of their trip to the beach is a glorious piece of blackly comic writing – the wind at their back as they walk giving them a sensation of energy and vitality, till they have to turn and come back against the same wind whipping away their breath and leaving them shattered and exhausted. It's a great picture of people trying to come to terms with the fact that ageing is taking its toll on what they're physically able to do, and nicely satirical about all those pictures of happy, energetic retirees in the sunshine that populate brochures for these kinds of communities.

Unfortunately, when the horrors begin, they simply didn't ring true for me. The actual events didn't justify the paranoia and, avoiding spoilers, the character change of the person who does the deed was too sudden and not well enough supported. The whole thing also turned on a plot device that I couldn't believe in – namely, that if the electricity got cut off the electric gates to the community couldn't be opened manually. There is also a piece of totally unnecessary and gruesome animal cruelty, which never works for me. And finally, the ending depends on such a hugely unlikely coincidental event that it lost any remaining credibility.

I know many people have loved this as one of Garnier's best, so I'm certainly willing to assume that the problems I encountered with it are a result of too recent comparison with the others I've read. Certainly his writing, aided by an excellent translation by Emily Boyce, is as good as ever and I did enjoy the early part of the novella a good deal. But the plot didn't work for me this time round, I'm afraid. I have two other novellas of his on my Kindle, but I think I'll leave a good long gap this time to try to avoid that feeling of sameness that I found with this one. Tricky, when I'm being rather negative, but I do still recommend this – I suspect with these novellas everyone will find they have different favourites, but all the ones I've read so far have been well worth the reading, especially if you're more skilled at suspending disbelief than I am. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Gallic Books.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Pia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another amazing-awesome-creepy-horrible book by Pascal Garnier.

Five people move into Les Conviviales, a retirement community in France. Of the 50 houses that are supposed to be sold, only 3 are occupied and there's no sign any more will be. The cast of characters is comprised by the residents: Odette & Martial the dumpy couple- Maxime & Marlene the trendy couple & Léa, Mr. Flesh the caretaker and Nadine the "social coordinator", an ex hippie who is always high on pot.

The closeness is overwhelming, as is the atmosphere in the book, but they all seem to be getting along quite fine, at least as much as you can get on when friendship is forced on you because of the circumstances. That is, until Mr. Flesh tells them to be careful of the gypsies that settle during the Summer near to Les Conviviales, and from that point, everything spirals downward. Starting with Marlene, who won't leave the community alone for fear of the gypsies, to Martial, who suddenly realizes he has lived a very boring life, and Maxime who being the big narcissist he is, thinks he has the solution to the problem, which happens to be a gun.

The ending is unexpected, to say the least!

The writing, as is the norm with Pascal Garnier, is perfect and so is the translation.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a writer he was! This book is a highly entertaining look at retirement...the bright side and the dark side.
Odette and Martial are the first couple to move in to a new retirement community. There was nothing but rain and nothing to do at first.
"Odette felt like learning something, but she wasn't sure what. Italian, ikebana, yoga, belly dancing, Turkish cookery, surgery -- anything, as long as it was new!"

Eventually the community grew, adding another married couple. Then a single woman. And there were dinners with drinks and soon they got the management to open their clubhouse for expanded socializing.

"Armed with a long-handled net, Monsieur Flesh was clearing the swimming pool of the insects that had come to drown there during the night."

Monsieur Flesh alerts the residents to the danger of the gypsies down the road and one of the men decides having a gun at his side was the reasonable thing to do. Of course there will be death as a new thing to experience for this group.

[Burak Kuscu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Son derece sade, akıcı ve keyifli bir kitap. Böyle kitapları arada okumak lazım. Hem araları dolduruyor hem de insanı hiç sıkmıyor. Konu ve işleniş bakımından da oldukça başarılı.

Yazarın kurduğu atmosfer, hava sıcaklıklarıyla da desteklenen bunaltıcı bir atmosfer aslında. Her ne kadar huzur vermesini bekliyor olsanız da o tekinsiz hava etrafta bir yerlerde hissediliyor. Kitabın sonlarına doğru her karakterde ayyuka çıkıyor ve finalde ise işler karışıyor.

Güzel bir haftasonu okuması olabilir örneğin.

Tavsiye ediyorum.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es bräuchte Stärke, sehr viel Stärke, um uns einzugestehen, dass wir vor unseren Fehlern und Schwächen nicht einfach fliehen können; Stärke zuzugeben, dass vieles im Leben vielleicht nur ein Kompromiß, vielleicht sogar eine Lüge war.
Wie attraktiv dagegen die Vorstellung, den Lebensabend in einem geschützten Bereich in der Idylle Südfrankreichs mit Gleichgesinnten zu verbringen, nichts als Sonne und Frohsinn.
Fünf der Protagonisten in MOON IN A DEAD EYE sind diesem Reiz erlegen und haben in einer eingezäunten, kameraüberwachten Wohnanlage ihren Wohnsitz genommen. Was könnte sie hindern, glücklich und harmonisch in den Tag hineinzuleben?
Pascal Garnier konfrontiert seine Figuren mit der Unmöglichkeit, unter einer Glasglocke glücklich zu sein; manche Gefahren sind real greifbar, andere deuten sich in großartigen Metaphern an.
Der Zaun und der kräftige Hausmeister mögen den Zigeunern den Zutritt versperren, aber die persönlichen Unzulänglichkeiten lassen sich nicht aussperren. Pseudosicherheit trifft auf Pseudobedrohung.

Düster, zugleich aber auch in verschiedenen Schattierungen witzig, von lustig über ironisch bis zynisch, erzählt Garnier vom Scheitern seiner Figuren und einer Wohnsiedlung, die niemals werden sollte, was sie versprach. Seine Sprache ist knapp, seine Metaphern eigenständig und eindringlich. Dem Sog dieses sehr kurzen Romans konnte ich mich nicht entziehen, allerdings wäre hinsichtlich der Bewerbung des Büchleins doch etwas richtig zu stellen:
Als "noir" könnte man den Text durchaus bezeichnen, allerdings handelt es sich nicht um eine Krimi a la Hammett, Chandler & Co.
Auf eine ganz falsche Fährte wird der Leser durch ein Zitat auf dem Buchumschlag gelenkt, wonach Tarantino als Vorbild angesehen werden könne. Ich musste sehr viel eher an T.C. Boyles "America" und an Camus "Der Fremde" denken.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short but beautiful and quirky read, "Moon in a Dead Eye" follows a group of elderly people as they move into a gated community, hoping for the good life in the sun. Unfortunately it doesnt quite live up to expectations - as a new build there are only two couples and one single lady living there - and the social activities advertised are not forthcoming as hoped. A social secretary finally arrives and things begin to look up. But of course, with a tight knit group such as this there are always going to be unseen tensions...

I adored this book but I am finding it quite difficult to say why exactly. It was just, well, GOOD! It kind of meanders along as you get to know each individual person and their foibles, and a lot of the book is really just how they settle in, react to each other and to their new surroundings and what they do to pass the time. The author however somehow manages to impart a sense of menace....like something is hovering just beneath the surface that you can't quite put your finger on. Ok so the caretaker is a somewhat sinister character but that in and of itself is not all of it. So I'd say its clever writing. Pascal Garnier definitely had an eye to the ironic...and he also managed a fair bit of humour.. still you felt all the way through that perhaps something was coming.

Was something coming? Well you will have to read it to find out. And I would say do so if you want something a little different and unexpected, but also purely for the genius of the writing. The turn of phrase and the way it flows is terrific. Perhaps not a book I would normally have picked up I am grateful to the publisher for sending me a copy to review. Otherwise I might have missed out and that would NEVER do.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

OK, I admit it: I lied. When I reviewed Pascal Garnier's The A26, I said that next up would be Boxes, also translated by Melanie Florence, but it just didn't sound as deliciously dark as Moon in a Dead Eye. The latter proved to be just as satisfying as it sounded. Garnier had a remarkable ability to get to the dark underbellies of everyday people in a way which feels so organic to the characters that not only the reader, but the characters themselves are surprised by the depths to which they willingly sink. Emily Boyce's translation was beautiful, with none of the incongruities which so distracted me in Florence's take on The A26.

Literary noir seems to be making quite a comeback, with Akashic's Noir Series anthologies leading the charge. None of Garnier's work is included in the two French anthologies thus far (Paris Noir and Marseille Noir), however, so kudos once again to Gallic Books for bringing his unique voice to the attention of English-speaking readers.

I received a free copy of Moon in a Dead Eye through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very entertaining, grimly humorous Garnier book. Lots of excellent lines (like Simenon, Garnier has a remarkable knack for perfectly concise similes) and memorable scenes. There are parts that could have been developed more but that's a minor complaint. Hopefully one day he will write his own romans dur.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5. Quick, fast-paced read at only 127 pp. -- a mixture of mystery, black humor, surrealism and psychological studies of several old people in a newly-minted gated community. We get to know each one and their foibles intimately. Spare prose with terse dialogue. Recommended.

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this one, my third? Funny, grotesque, disorienting. Dry, fast psychological horror.

[Tuna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ülkemizde son senelerde pandeminin de etkisiyle kentten kıra yönelen tersine göç olgusunun Fransa’daki izdüşümü olarak pekala yorumlanabilir. Her ne kadar uzaktan ve dönüşümlü çalışma olanaklarının getirilmesiyle gençlerde de görülse de hali vakti yerinde emeklilerin daha çok tercih ettikleri bir eğilim olduğu söylenebilir.

Büyük şehirlerdeki apartmanlar ve kalabalıklardan kaçma yönelimi anlaşılır olmakla birlikte Odette-Martial çiftinin emeklilik köyüne gelmek için sattıkları banliyödeki evlerinin müstakil olması çelişkili görülebilir. Muhtemelen gelen diğer çift ile yalnız kadının da amacı güvende olmak ve huzur bulmak olabilir.

Üç haneden, bir güvenlik görevlisi ve haftada bir gün gelen animatörden oluşan bu küçük grup, davetsiz misafirleri hesaba katmazsak, görece rahatı ve sükuneti yakalayabilir. Bunun gerçekleşmesi için herşeyin yolunda gitmesi beklenir.

Tatil köyü normallerini tehdit edecek gelişme gelip kapıya dayandığında yabancı düşmanlığı, özgürlük ve güvenlik sarmalı, septisizme kayan aşırılıklar insanın ruhunu kemirebilir. İşler ters gitmeye başladığında bilinmeyene duyulan öfke ve öteki korkusu, cenneteki yeryüzünü cehenneme de çevirebilir.

Yazarın tarzını, Çehov ve Proust’a selam gönderdiği küçük dokunuşlarını sevdim. Hiç beklenmeyen yerlerde tuhaf teşbihlerle “Kırmızı puantiyeli elbisesiyle, havası yavaşça sönen bir plaj topuna benziyordu” gibi gülümseten tarzını, hikayenin geneline ve bazı bölümlerine özellikle serpiştirilen kara komik halleri beğendim.

[Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Yes, it was like living on holiday, the only difference being that holidays came to an end. It was as though they had bought themselves a ticket to the afterlife; they no longer had a future.”



In Moon in a Dead Eye, Martial and Odette Sudre retire from Paris to Les Conviviales, a retirement community in the Midi. Concerned about the increased violence in their Parisian neighbourhood, the retirement community seemed to be the ideal alternative–especially when the estate agent told them that they “exactly fitted the owner profile the property company was seeking.” It was a hard-pressure sell, and Martial and Odette, narcotized by the thought they’d be surrounded by people just like them, signed on the dotted line….

Now, three months later, it’s December and Martial and Odette arrive to discover that they are the sole inhabitants of the community. True, there’s Monsieur Flesh, a caretaker-manager, a surly antisocial type, but what happened to all the other promised residents, the activities director, the sunny weather? But not to worry… there’s another couple due to arrive in March or April.

Martial and Odette are like shipwreck survivors washed up in a ghost town. Odette, the one who pushed for the move in the first place, refuses to be unhappy with their decision to move, so she throws herself into her new life and hobbies which is probably just as well as there’s nothing else to do. First she starts making crappy apple jelly, and then moves on to torturing her husband with culinary ‘surprises’ from around the world. Imagine how thrilled they are when someone else finally moves in. Maxime (with his false teeth and dyed black hair) and former ballerina Marlene Node, another retired couple of course, move in up the street. From a distance the Nodes seem younger than the Sudres, but up close, it’s a different story. If these two couples met elsewhere, they’d instinctively avoid one another, but if there are only four of you living inside a gated community, you don’t have a choice but to become friends.

They engaged in the customary small talk for a quarter of an hour, all the while studying each other closely out of the corners of their eyes, like naturalists examining a newly discovered species.

So now we have 4 people, 2 couples in this forced friendship created by circumstance. Then a fifth person moves, a younger, single woman named Léa. By this point, the other four residents are desperate for a new face:

She had been a little taken aback to find the four of them on her doorstep. The removal men had only just left and she had barely had time to get her breath back. They stood there smiling like Jehovah’s witnesses, the tall one especially, Maxime Node. He was the one who introduced everybody, showing them off as though trying to get a good price for them. Then they all began talking at once, each of them impressing on her their willingness to help. They didn’t seem like bad people, but they still frightened her a bit. Too eager, too smiley, too many outstretched hands … so old and wrinkled it was hard to tell whether they were grasping or giving.

A gated community exists to keep out the riff-raff, and the residents who buy into such an arrangement are happy with that idea. M. Flesh is there to make sure that the outside world doesn’t creep in and intrude on their fabricated middle-class isolation, but the lengths he goes to are extreme. Plus then there’s the whole gate part of ‘gated community.’ At what point do you become locked in instead of the world being locked out? When gypsies move in and set up an encampment down the road outside of Les Conviviales, paranoia reigns and all hell breaks loose.

Moon in a Dead Eye is savagely hilarious, and most of the humour comes from snobbery & paranoia. Garnier doesn’t spare his characters; they’re a sad lot whose empty lives become worse when they move into this gated community. Aging lothario Maxime sees the poor as “vermin” infesting society, and when he’s inside a gated community with people in his own economic sphere, he can only associate with a couple in his peer group. In theory this should comfort Maxime, but the isolation only fuels his paranoia. Maxime finds the company of people his own age disconcerting as he’s spent the last few years denying the fact that he’s aging, and he spends a considerable amount of time and energy to disguising, unsuccessfully, his age. Living in a retirement community just confirms the fact that Maxime is no longer young, and this fuels his feeling of exposure and vulnerability. The ‘security’ of the gated community feeds the paranoia gnawing at Maxime until any difference seems unacceptable and threatening.

While in the past in Orléans, feeling as though he lived a life under siege, Maxime carried a revolver, but he’s no more secure now–especially after the gypsies appear. They’re just more people who according to Maxime are “out to get us and take our things.” Living in isolation, even in a place that theoretically safe, hasn’t done Maxime any favours.

They had been burgled three times in recent years. The residential neighbourhood of Orléans where they had lived for many moons had become a prime target for the scum who came in from the outlying boroughs. Nothing could stop them, not the most sophisticated alarm systems or the patrols that took place day and night. They were everywhere and nowhere, gnawing away like vermin at the foundations of the stable, quiet life people had worked so hard to build.

Living in this retirement community is a sort of living-death, a hibernation phase just prior to the permanence of death. Garnier shows how this sort of isolation is unhealthy and contributes to the idea that any sort of difference (class, wealth) feeds paranoia. Although the subject matter is different from the dying hitman of How’s the Pain and the disaffected killer inThe Panda Theory, once again I’m reminded of Jean-Pierre Manchette, probably because of Garnier’s merciless view of the bourgeoisie.

[Cleopatra Pullen · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like your humour dark and fuelled by a savage turn of phrase, this short book will most likely suit your needs perfectly.

In this short novel Pascal Garnier turns his attentions to the elderly and those who are acquainted with his style realise that nothing good can come of Martial and Odette Sudre move to a gated retirement village.
Odette is keen on the idea of living a life-like being on holiday each day of the year whereas Martial is a little more circumspect

All those years spent doggedly accumulating a thousand little habits from which to spin a cosy cocoon of existence on first-name terms with the newsagent, butcher and baker, going to the market on Saturday morning and taking the Sunday stroll up to Mont Valerien… Then one by one, their neighbours had retired to the Loire valley, Brittany, Cannnes… or the cemetery.

But as Odette becomes seduced by talk of a clubhouse and a pool the pair move in. The pair were the first of the residents to move into the village and the winter months was a bit of a lonely one as well as a time to acclimatise.

For the moment, it was closed, and they had not yet met nor even caught sight of the social secretary. Not that Martial was overly concerned. In fact, he was somewhat dreading the opening of the clubhouse. He had no desire to take part in pancake-tossing competitions with people he did not know.

I liked Martial!

After a long winter with Odette buying items for the new house and cooking culinary surprises they are keen to form a welcoming committee when a new couple move in; Maxime and Marlene Node, finally instead of imagining the new neighbours they could meet them for real! Perhaps mindful of the dreary winter they soon share food, drink and outings together. And then a new single woman is rumoured to be moving into the complex and Maxime for one is keen to impress.

Maxime was striking toreador poses. Chest puffed out, belly sucked in, fists clenched beside his hips, he held his breath for long enough to tell himself he still looked pretty good for a man his age. As his muscles relaxed, the skin sagged on his hunched skeleton like an oversized garment. He shrugged his shoulders and began to shave.

Léa moves in, and her new inquisitive neighbours show up on her doorstep as soon as the removal men left keen to see how their new neighbour would fit into the community. With savage humour Garnier exposes each of the characters for the shallow beings they are, have always been, the difference being, in real life there are distractions from yourself, in a gated community with a scarcity of people, the owners of these shallow characteristics become more aware of them, as well as being irritated by those of others.

A thoroughly enjoyable look at snobbery and aging while you can’t fail to miss the underlying suspense, the feeling that something awful is about to befall these poor misguided folk. To find out what that is, you’ll have to read the book for yourself!

I am very grateful to the publishers Gallic Books who gave me a copy of this book which I exchange for this, my honest opinion and have to praise the skill of the translator, Emily Boyce, who made me forget that it wasn’t originally written in English.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every now and then I venture out from the safe little pulp adventures I usually read and attempt something that might actually be considered "literature" by the hoi-polloi. I had received a copy of Moon in a Dead Eye from a Goodreads giveaway last year and it finally made it to the top of the To-Be-Read pile (well, shelf now, actually).

I have to say that after reading the indicia, I didn't hold out much hope: The book's translated from the French, and given the Franco-centric isolationism of that culture, I wondered if this would even be readable by a mere American. For once, my expectations were pleasantly wrong; this was both a well-written novel and a very interesting story. And, even better, it began to take some incredibly bizarre twists and turns on the final chapters, culminating in a very weird ending for a "normal" book.

That ending is why I gave this book four stars instead of five, since I just didn't see some of the motivations for some of the characters to do what they did. I'm a person who relishes the weird, but there's got to be some rationality behind it, or it isn't weird - just ... odd.

This was a refreshing change of pace, and it's good to see that the French government's cultural edicts aren't making all literature there too French for the rest of the world!

[Ferda Nihat Koksoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...yıllarca sayısız dava uğruna mücadele ettikten sonra, öyle büyük bir hayal kırıklığına uğramıştı ki, kendi kendine, eğer dünyayı değiştiremiyorsa, o zaman dünyanın onu değiştirmemesi için her şeyi yapacağına söz vermişti."

"...yıllar boyunca yaşadıkları bölge, şehrin etrafını çeviren varoş serserilerinin sevdikleri bir hedef haline gelmişti. Hiçbir şey onları durduramıyordu; ne hırsız alarmları ne de gece gündüz etrafta dolaşan devriyeler. Hem her yerdeydiler hem de hiçbir yerde. İnsanlar doğal olarak huzurlu ve durağan bir hayat arzuluyorlardı, fakat onlar bu hayatın temelini bir haşarat gibi kemiriyorlardı ve şehir merkezi de bunlardan nasibini almıştı."

"Evet, burası sürekli tatilde olmak gibiydi ama bir farkı vardı ki o da şuydu: Tatilin bir sonu olurdu, buranın ise yoktu. Sanki sonsuzluk için para ödemişlerdi, gelecekleri yoktu artık, geleceği olmadan yaşayabilmeye gelmişlerdi."

"...zeytin ağacının, büyük çömleğinin içinden bir periskop misali yukarı uzanan, uzanırken de sırığına tutunan kırılgan dalları, insan umudunun dokunaklı ve zavallı yönlerini muhteşem bir şekilde ifade ediyordu."

[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martial and Odette move from the Paris suburbs to a gated retirement community. Things aren’t quite as they planned; they are the first owners in the new development, the weather in the region is poor and with no sign of the community centre and events co-ordinator, time hangs heavily on their hands.
With the arrival of couple Maxime and Marlene, a single woman Lea and some better weather, things start to look up. But when some gypsies set up camp nearby, this seems to act as a catalyst for change, as all the insecurities and eccentricities of the residents start to surface and intensify.
This is glorious writing, the translation does not intrude, and the story descends rapidly into blacker and blacker horror and humour.
This is my first Pascal Garnier – I should not have left it so long.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Martial and Odette move to a newly built retirement village in the south of France they are the first to arrive. They are eagerly awaiting their new neighbors, wondering who will move in next. Initially, all is well when Maxime and Marlène arrive. But will a retirement paradise become a retirement hell? Only Garnier will tell.

This books is short but brilliant. It manages to say so much about the human condition. The characters are pitch perfect, the atmosphere moves from light to dark and the location is telling. If this is any indication of Pascal Garnier's other work, I can't wait to read more.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallic Books for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.