Echo Year

by Casper Silk

Who hasn't dreamed of a life in the perfect French chateau? When electronics magnate David Crown finds himself at the scene of a hate crime, his idyll in the Midi countryside abruptly ends. Against a backdrop of Gallic bonhomie and summer's languid ripening, David, his bookish girlfriend Rowena, and his demented mother Miriam struggle to make a home of a gilded Mansard as it swiftly devolves into a web of mishap and murder. With deftness and compassion, Casper Silk entwines the destinies of a village thrust into the new millennium, a teenager convicted of a firebombing, and a man struggling, at midlife, to cross a border and seize his dreams.

228 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2013

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclosure: ARC sent by Pale Fire Press

Opening: Lionel Passes the Empty Chateau

The Crown chateau sold last week to a Spanish horse breeder, old money, who intends to hide his mistress there. A pair of Paso Finos have preceded her, tethered on the summit where David Crown once planted a pair of date palms—gone now. From a distance the horses appear mythical, fiery, yet their presence gives no pleasure. Already the Spaniard’s peons have begun construction on the stables.

Dedication:

 To the David Crowns of the
world, who recognize their
own puniness but do the
impossible anyway

For my readers

Opening quote: “After An Orgy Of Music, Slaughter.”
From Souvenirs Entomologiques, Jean-Henri Fabré

French far right presidential candidate and National Front party president Marine Le Pen, right, listens to her father Jean-Marie Le Pen

Characters;

Lionel and Laura Olivier
David Crown - The new owner of Vie Dorée
Madame Fermat - housekeeper (she has a theory)
Miriam - David's mother
Rowena - current squeeze
Charlotte Corday
Hedy and Cecil Rhodes (apt name), neighbours, Maison Joyeuse
Lieutenant Lebrun (the bear)
Bro Barry
Swijdendorp
Rashid and Emile Hamadi

Français : L'Assassinat de Marat / Charlotte Corday Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry: 1860 oil on canvas

There is a strong probability that Casper Silk is a pen name for Germaine Shames given her writing is about street children against international backdrops. Also, the big give away is that there are only 2 reviews and both are 5*. One is the publisher, the other is Shames, which, bytheby, also sounds like a penname in a sort of 'if the cap fits, wear it' definition.

Truffles

Thoroughly enjoyed this.

Although a smidgeon less than perfect what with that initial choppiness and some characters needed some further fleshing out, I was nevertheless transported. As chaotic and unpredictable as life itself.

[Randee Baty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was interested in Echo Year because I am always interested in books set in France. Just tell me it’s set in France and you’ve got a reader. It seems like it was listed in mysteries but it is definitely not a mystery. It’s one of those books with no clear genre that I end up just listing as literary. It’s just the story of some people’s lives and I never know what to call that.

The book is the story of David Crown, an English Jew living in the south of France on an estate he is restoring. His mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, and his American girlfriend live with him. His family had owned a very successful company that was bought out by a rival, allowing him to leave the business with a substantial wealth. He’s able to make his dream of living in a maison in the south of France with a lover come true.

His Judaism doesn’t play much part in his life in general until one day when going into town to buy gargoyles for his house, he happens upon a synagogue and stops to look at it. Unfortunately for him, not all inhabitants of the town are friendly toward Jews and violence follows. His idyllic existence is changed forever.

There are a number of themes explored in this book. Racism and nationalism are two clear themes but all the characters are also dealing with the purpose of life, one of the biggest questions anyone asks. Can a person change and can a person be redeemed from their past are also played with.

My take-away from the book, and this is probably not what the author intended to be the main take-away, was that everyone needs work to do. Work that matters. When you have no reason to get up in the morning, things go downhill fast. David and his girlfriend Rowena don’t have to do anything if they don’t want to because they have money so they question their purpose. Rashid, an Arab immigrant involved in the violence, can’t get a job so he gets involved in criminal behavior for lack of something better to do. Work that matters is essential to humans and this story played that out , in my mind at least.

I felt and saw the characters very clearly. Their motivations were clear, their emotions were clear, their feelings were clear. The characterizations were excellent.

This is not a feel-good book. This is a lot of troubled people dealing with their troubled lives. That is not the kind of thing I normally read but this was definitely worth my time.

I received this book free for review.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Echo Year is one of those intriguing books that exists on the fringes of genre, but is always and entirely unique. It tells the deceptively simple story of a good man living out his life's dream in a French chateau, but within this structure manages to say cogent and provocative things about youth and age, privilege and poverty, religion and social class. The language is lush and precise; the descriptions are vivid; the effect of both sorrow and hope stays with you long after the book is finished.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Crown, a semi-retired businessman, lives in a chateau in the south of France. He's working on restoring it and is living there with his girlfriend and his mother. He witnesses a hate crime against a Jewish temple and it rattles him deeply. He takes on the role of mentor to a teenage boy, one of the two young Muslim men that were convicted for the crime and tries to make a difference in the lad's life. Meanwhile he's dealing with his mother's dementia, a housekeeper that regards he and his family with suspicion, and a neighbour that is waging war against unseen assailants against his crop of truffles. He's friends with the mayor of the town as well and we get some of the story from his point of view. David seems to have hit a wall, a midlife identity crisis and this seems to be a turning point for him.

I liked the book, it wasn't wrapped up in nice happy endings but you do think things might work out for him once he finds his feet and a different way forward for his life.

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While reading this book, I couldn't get away from comparisons in my mind to the first story in Marie NDaiye's collection All My Friends, which also deals with Muslims in France. NDaiye's world, although only a short-story, feels immense compared to this entire novel, which has a feeling of slightness to it. Not that slight is necessarily a bad thing, but Echo Year is a floating, almost bubbly novel in contrast to the depth that could have been placed there. I had a hard time appreciating this novel for what it was, instead thinking of ways that it could have dealt with some of the issues it raised more in depth. A little frustrating, I suppose.

There are a few writing choices I felt were overplayed - mainly the omniscient narrator too obvious and with too much explanation, especially at the start of the sections. The last thirty pages I found unnecessary and one of the revelations therein, I didn't find useful within the context of the larger story between David and Rashid.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book as the word murder was used in the description that I read, but if you love murder mysteries don't bother to read it if the subject doesn't appeal. I found the main character David Crown irritatingly naive and none of the other characters especially engaging. But if you want to read about a British Jew living in France interacting with French Muslims then you might enjoy this.