Gallic Noir: Volume 2

by Pascal Garnier

nter the world of Pascal Garnier, where life’s misfits take centre stage, there is drama in the everyday and the unexpected is always just around the corner.

Dark, funny and shot through with menace, these perfectly crafted novellas are also affecting studies in human alienation.

Massively acclaimed by both reviewers and fellow authors, Garnier has been compared to many other writers, yet he remains the master of his own unique brand of Gallic noir.

Volume 2 includes:

Boxes, which tells the story of Brice, ‘the sole survivor of the natural disaster that at one time or another strikes us all, known as ‘moving house’’

The Front Seat Passenger, in which a widower discovers his wife had a lover and decides to track down his widow

The Islanders, whose protagonist Olivier finds himself thrown back together with a childhood friend with whom he shares a dark secret

Moon in a Dead Eye, in which the paranoia of the residents of a gated retirement village spins out of control.

Genres: Noir

502 pages, Paperback

Published March 27, 2018

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

[metellus cimber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am working my way through the Gallic Noir volumes and so far I've not been disappointed by a single story. Quirky, unsettling, beautifully written, the stories and images resonate long after they're over. Extraordinary characters, poignant and human but undeniably weird. They accord with my conviction that people have a dark, unknowable side that can erupt unexpectedly - and I love the subtlety with which the ordinary and banal slowly transforms into the uncanny and disturbing.

[Gabriela Galescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Camus wrote a Noir

Haven’t read existentialist literature since high school and how I missed it. Pascal’s writing is a heady mix of Camus and Moravia.

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Splendidly wierd, with a sharp mordant wit, these little gems will linger long in your mind.