3 minute read
THE ANOMALY by Hervé Le Tellier; trans. by Adriana Hunter
the anomaly
TRUE CRIME STORY
Knox, Joseph Sourcebooks Landmark (400 pp.) $16.99 paper | Dec. 7, 2021 978-1-72824-586-7
In a serpentine narrative that reads like a podcast, the friends, parents, and twin sister of a 19-year-old college student recall the events leading up to her disappearance as well as the criminal investigation and personal travails that
followed.
Almost every character in this so-called “true crime story” set in Manchester, England, in 2011 has something to hide. That includes the author, who, using his real name, casts himself as one of the more dubious actors on a crowded stage that is in fact a hall of mirrors. The setup, however, is straightforward and all too familiar. At the tail end of a drunken Christmas party, a pretty and talented college student disappears and is never seen again. “She never got the chance to let her childhood and her pretensions fall away,” the vanished Zoe’s pretentious boyfriend, Andrew, later muses. “And you could argue that’s useful for the role that she’s been cast in by the likes of her father....A victim is apparently the best thing you can be in this day and age.” Andrew is one of a handful of central characters interviewed by Evelyn Mitchell, a journalist who becomes obsessed with the case (and who is murdered, perhaps as a consequence or perhaps not). It is Evelyn’s transcript of those interviews—interrupted by emails between Evelyn and the author—that reveals both the truth behind Zoe’s disappearance and the deceits and dangers that shadow these young lives. “It’s amazing what can seem normal when it’s all you know,” one character remarks of his unstable Irish mother. “I spent my first five years dressed as the girl she’s actually been expecting, which was confusing to say the least.” This is Fintan, of whom the reader will learn more and worse. Each voice is distinctive and convincing, and each story within the central tale captures the youth culture of the time in unglamorous Manchester. There is, however, more style than substance in a crime novel that, for all its cleverness, resorts to red herrings that would make Agatha Christie blush.
A cunningly constructed yet flimsy novel of youthful confusion, obsession, and murder.
THE ANOMALY
Le Tellier, Hervé Trans. by Adriana Hunter Other Press (336 pp.) $16.99 paper | Nov. 23, 2021 978-1-63542-169-9
A mystifying phenomenon sends shock waves through the world of an alternate 2021. The opening chapter presents a detailed portrait of a professional assassin called Blake, a man described as “extremely meticulous, cautious, and imaginative.” The same adjectives could be applied to author Le Tellier: Trained as a mathematician and a scientific journalist, he uses these first pages to prime the reader for his methodically crafted story. The action then abruptly jumps to Victor Miesel, a disillusioned author and translator who becomes “mired in a horrible impression of unreality” after a turbulent flight. Over the following weeks, Miesel feverishly writes a new book called The anomaly, sends it to his editor, and kills himself. Then, snap, a new chapter begins, introducing a film editor named Lucie, who, along with every subsequently introduced character (eleven, altogether), is inexplicably requisitioned by the authorities.The connection between these people soon becomes clear: They were all passengers on the same turbulent flight. What exactly happened on this airplane? Le Tellier withholds the details for long enough that revealing the mystery here would spoil the entrancing quality of the book. Hunter’s brilliant translation from the French—her fifth collaboration with Le Tellier—transforms Le Tellier’s distinct French voice into a distinct English one. More importantly, Hunter
