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Nevermore
When Deputy Willy Bost arrives in the mysterious border town of San Rosa, he does not know why he has been sent there or what he will find. What he encounters, gradually, is an obscure network of private and public relations tarnished by corruption, ambition, manipulation, and deceit. Nothing is clear in the workings of this sinister city; and no one, including Willy Bost, is altogether innocent. Murder, bombings, deceptions, seductions—all come to the fore in this spellbinding portrait of a society that seems both absurd and real. Nevermore is Marie Redonnet’s fifth novel. Her earlier novels display her talent for capturing the unique voices and personalities of isolated women. Nevermore reflects her equally great gift for portraying the workings—and failures—of whole societies. Born in Paris in 1947, Marie Redonnet taught for a number of years in a suburban lycée before deciding to pursue a writing career full time. Since her volume of poetry Le Mort & Cie appeared in 1985, she has published five novels, a novella, short stories, and three dramatic works.
125 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 1996
136 people want to read
About the author
Marie Redonnet
28 books34 followersBorn in Paris in 1947, Redonnet taught for a number of years in a suburban lycée before deciding to pursue a writing career full time. Since her volume of poetry Le Mort & Cie appeared in 1985, she has published four novels, a novella, numerous short stories, and three dramatic works.
Redonnet's novels have been compared to those of Annie Ernaux, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Samuel Beckett. She has since acknowledged the crucial influence which Beckett's work has had upon her literary work. And yet she is also notably different from the great master of modern literature.
Redonnet's novels have been compared to those of Annie Ernaux, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Samuel Beckett. She has since acknowledged the crucial influence which Beckett's work has had upon her literary work. And yet she is also notably different from the great master of modern literature.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 20, 2023
A strange but haunting novel; almost a fantasy, with a lot of Big Brother thrown in. We are in a vaguely dystopian futuristic world in a vaguely west coast American setting, even though the book is translated from French.
But people are people and we have a lot of lovelorn, lonely and corrupt political and business types. They are all duplicitous and prone to suicide and murder. In fact, most of the main characters get knocked off along the way for reasons that aren’t always clear to the reader.
There is also a lot of strange sex going on, as if the author had read too much Michel Houellebecq. No one ever laughs in this book. I guess that in the future, humor has disappeared. It’s a short read, 125 pages broken into 25 untitled mini-chapters.
The French author (b. 1948) has written eight novels, most translated into English. Some of her worked has been compared to Annie Ernaux. She’s best known for Hotel Splendid but based on GR ratings her work is not well-known among English readers.
[Revised, pictures, shelves added 1/20/23]
Top image from animationmagazine.net
The author from prabook.com
But people are people and we have a lot of lovelorn, lonely and corrupt political and business types. They are all duplicitous and prone to suicide and murder. In fact, most of the main characters get knocked off along the way for reasons that aren’t always clear to the reader.
There is also a lot of strange sex going on, as if the author had read too much Michel Houellebecq. No one ever laughs in this book. I guess that in the future, humor has disappeared. It’s a short read, 125 pages broken into 25 untitled mini-chapters.
The French author (b. 1948) has written eight novels, most translated into English. Some of her worked has been compared to Annie Ernaux. She’s best known for Hotel Splendid but based on GR ratings her work is not well-known among English readers.
[Revised, pictures, shelves added 1/20/23]
Top image from animationmagazine.net
The author from prabook.com
July 24, 2017
Re-read July 2017: Immediately upon opening this book, Redonnet's icy clarity infects me. Nevermore is an abstracted noir composed of crystalline icons that clash and recompose their arrangements in a complicated mechanical ballet. (Maya says: each character is like a playing or tarot card, with certain predefined attributes and motives). It's true, but even so these card/icon/archetypes (see also, the game pieces of her early Death and Company) seem complete unto themselves and are familiar without reproducing any other such system. Somehow this stylization doesn't strip the key characters of their pathos and interest, even as it amplifies the hypnotic force with which Redonnet exposes the submerged lines of power and corruption across her entire city and universe. The back blurb somehow saw fit to describe this as an erotic thriller, but even sex here is just another power structure, to be coldly catalogued along with so many backroom deals and private despairs. Just shy of five stars, actually. Why was this marvel the last Redonnet novel to be granted an English translation?
Original review, December 2010: Marie Redonnet's best book? Her Hotel Splendid was an excellent bit of Beckett-like dismal monotony, oddly funny and affecting despite its well, yeah, dismal monotony. In Nevermore she maintains much of her sense crisp objective minimalism, neither offering nor requiring much introspection, and much of her sense of tragic resignation, but replaces the mundane tragedy and narrow scope of Hotel with a heightened melodramatic noir encompassing alcoholic detectives, wounded acrobats, devious nightclub owners, and singers with hidden pasts, across an entire city, a kind of invented west coast U.S. border-city full of drug deals, political maneuvers, and dormant volcanos. The overall effect is to give a sense of corruption spreading across an entire society, with rightness being a very transitional state. But also of a kind of endurance in the face of this, as with her prior books. At the same time, this was also pretty entirely entertaining even despite its detachment, easily read in a single go on the bus, in a blizzard. Marie Redonnet is unique and talented and doesn't get a lot of attention yet, so her novels are pretty easy to get ahold of for nothing, which seems highly worth doing.
Original review, December 2010: Marie Redonnet's best book? Her Hotel Splendid was an excellent bit of Beckett-like dismal monotony, oddly funny and affecting despite its well, yeah, dismal monotony. In Nevermore she maintains much of her sense crisp objective minimalism, neither offering nor requiring much introspection, and much of her sense of tragic resignation, but replaces the mundane tragedy and narrow scope of Hotel with a heightened melodramatic noir encompassing alcoholic detectives, wounded acrobats, devious nightclub owners, and singers with hidden pasts, across an entire city, a kind of invented west coast U.S. border-city full of drug deals, political maneuvers, and dormant volcanos. The overall effect is to give a sense of corruption spreading across an entire society, with rightness being a very transitional state. But also of a kind of endurance in the face of this, as with her prior books. At the same time, this was also pretty entirely entertaining even despite its detachment, easily read in a single go on the bus, in a blizzard. Marie Redonnet is unique and talented and doesn't get a lot of attention yet, so her novels are pretty easy to get ahold of for nothing, which seems highly worth doing.
June 13, 2024
Redonnet in noir mode is not unlike Redonnet in her triptych form. In particular, the setting of this novel reminded me of the final book of that cycle, Rose Mellie Rose. Her style here is basically the same as in the triptych, but the element of mystery is more focused. So too is her fixation on power dynamics both within society and between the sexes. She describes brutality in a clinical way that opens up space for reflection on the psychological significance of what is happening, rather than just initiating a purely knee-jerk emotional response. This is also what I see as the nexus between her work and that of Alain Robbe-Grillet.
In this novel, the characters are all haunted by their pasts, some of which eventually come to light while others remain undisclosed. They use each other in mechanical ways wrought by their pasts, and yet still sometimes feel drawn to each other on other inexplicable levels. The book urges the reader on with its rapid pacing, and while Redonnet could be accused of dismissively expediting the plot in places, this rapid-fire divulgence of events and change is actually integral to her style. It also enhances her cynical treatment of political and economic hierarchies, including the shifting allegiances of the power brokers within these structures, the short-term demonizing of candidates during campaign season, and the later partnerships of unlikely bedfellows, as reinvention occurs in the interests of securing and cementing holds on power. Finally, it is also reflective of the contemporary news cycle constantly churning around us, wherein natural disasters and terrorist acts are accorded their one or two-day coverage before the media moves onto the next big thing.
By not keeping her focus on one single character, Redonnet does lose the singular quality that made Forever Valley so hypnotic and alluring. However, I found the ending to this one particularly satisfying. I suspect this would be a good introduction to Redonnet for readers unfamiliar with her work, as opposed to starting with the triptych.
In this novel, the characters are all haunted by their pasts, some of which eventually come to light while others remain undisclosed. They use each other in mechanical ways wrought by their pasts, and yet still sometimes feel drawn to each other on other inexplicable levels. The book urges the reader on with its rapid pacing, and while Redonnet could be accused of dismissively expediting the plot in places, this rapid-fire divulgence of events and change is actually integral to her style. It also enhances her cynical treatment of political and economic hierarchies, including the shifting allegiances of the power brokers within these structures, the short-term demonizing of candidates during campaign season, and the later partnerships of unlikely bedfellows, as reinvention occurs in the interests of securing and cementing holds on power. Finally, it is also reflective of the contemporary news cycle constantly churning around us, wherein natural disasters and terrorist acts are accorded their one or two-day coverage before the media moves onto the next big thing.
By not keeping her focus on one single character, Redonnet does lose the singular quality that made Forever Valley so hypnotic and alluring. However, I found the ending to this one particularly satisfying. I suspect this would be a good introduction to Redonnet for readers unfamiliar with her work, as opposed to starting with the triptych.
April 14, 2015
Basically a one-star crapola, but because I do like Marie Redonnet, and I do know she can do better, she gets two. What a waste of her time and mine. Infantile, juvenile, and sophomoric. Anyone wishing for lists of names, and notes on what she might put into a novel if she were to sit down to the lonely and arduous task of writing one, quick grab a copy of this book. After completing my reading now of five of these short works, I quit, as any book following the first three in her opening trilogy happen to be junk. Any hidden literary code that might be revealed later to enable me to understand her secret work I have no interest in. I would rather stay dumb.
May 12, 2016
I have a predilection for elegant and peculiar French novels in which almost nothing happens. But here is an elegant and peculiar French novel in which things happen non-stop. Events are reported in language as compressed and flat as a summary in TV Guide. “A frenetic erotic thriler” said the Times Literary Supplement, which is true, but also totally misses the point. It’d be more true to say: “A frenetic erotic thriller totally uninterested in being a frenetic erotic thriller.”
As odd as it is to say, this book is not about what happens in it. What happens is like a TV left on, at full volume, in the corner. As ever, Redonnet is looking at power, at decay, at corruption, at the impossibility of separating virtue from vice, growth from loss, goodness from nonsense, in the human heart. As in her previous novels, she does so by means of prose that is spare, flat and overpoweringly hypnotic.
Redonnet is invariably compared to Beckett, but she has a special strangeness all her own. At least five of her novels were translated into English 20 years ago. Among English language readers, she now seems to have totally fallen off the radar. How foolish, deaf and ungrateful we are! She ought to be at least as famous as Marguerite Duras.
If you’re new to Redonnet, I suggest starting with Hotel Splendid. Also, Dalkey’s
‘Best European Fiction 2013’ -- a hit or miss affair -- is totally worth purchasing just to read the stunning Redonnet story that appears there.
Redonnet’s deliberately flat prose is not for everyone, but I am hooked. No. The correct word is haunted. To give you a sense, here’s the first paragraph of Nevermore:
“This transfer to San Rosa, on the west coast, just next to the border, was not what Willy Bost had dreamt of. But he wants to forget what he had dreamt of, just as he wants to forget the past. One the first page of the notebook he wrote in red ink: ‘It is forbidden to remember the past. It is forbidden to compare the present with what I had dreamt of.’ He chose that particular notebook because it fit into the inside pocket of his jacket, so that it would always be within reach. As if he were going to need an assistant in San Rosa, and had decided that this notebook would be his assistant.”
As odd as it is to say, this book is not about what happens in it. What happens is like a TV left on, at full volume, in the corner. As ever, Redonnet is looking at power, at decay, at corruption, at the impossibility of separating virtue from vice, growth from loss, goodness from nonsense, in the human heart. As in her previous novels, she does so by means of prose that is spare, flat and overpoweringly hypnotic.
Redonnet is invariably compared to Beckett, but she has a special strangeness all her own. At least five of her novels were translated into English 20 years ago. Among English language readers, she now seems to have totally fallen off the radar. How foolish, deaf and ungrateful we are! She ought to be at least as famous as Marguerite Duras.
If you’re new to Redonnet, I suggest starting with Hotel Splendid. Also, Dalkey’s
‘Best European Fiction 2013’ -- a hit or miss affair -- is totally worth purchasing just to read the stunning Redonnet story that appears there.
Redonnet’s deliberately flat prose is not for everyone, but I am hooked. No. The correct word is haunted. To give you a sense, here’s the first paragraph of Nevermore:
“This transfer to San Rosa, on the west coast, just next to the border, was not what Willy Bost had dreamt of. But he wants to forget what he had dreamt of, just as he wants to forget the past. One the first page of the notebook he wrote in red ink: ‘It is forbidden to remember the past. It is forbidden to compare the present with what I had dreamt of.’ He chose that particular notebook because it fit into the inside pocket of his jacket, so that it would always be within reach. As if he were going to need an assistant in San Rosa, and had decided that this notebook would be his assistant.”
May 7, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. It's very short so a quick read. It's got a Noir/David Lynch vibe. This book will also make you blush. It's got a little naughty side with an untidy ending.
October 22, 2009
Adequately unsettling
January 5, 2025
3.5/5
This book is written very well, as expected from Redonnet; the sentences are both laconic and lucid, short but packed with innocence and meaning (even when the characters are unlikable and terrible).
It's very hard to stomach thematically however. The book concerns a fictional city (I love Redonnet's use of unreal and dreamlike locations) which is filled with corruption. Most of the characters in the book are simply puppets to money and greed. There are some gross sex scenes that were hard to stomach because they were from the perspective of either abusive people, or cold men only looking for thrills, but I felt they truly added to the urgency of what Redonnet was trying to convey. She tried to find little bits of solidarity between confused and oppressed people in this dystopian hellscape. San Rosa is a coastal town near a volcano, and the beautiful gleams of the sea give us a nice contrast to the grime of the town.
All of the characters have something of a starring role in the seemingly small world of San Rosa, but the introductory character is Willy Bost. He seems like a parody of the typical hard-boiled, cold as iron detective. He gets called to San Rosa for who knows why (only later in the novel does San Rosa start to abound in mysteries). He is quite cynical and disdainful of people around him, and us, the readers, are often going to be obligated to return the favor and be disdainful for this unlikeable clown who takes himself too seriously. Nonetheless, Redonnet's strength is that she lets glimmers of humanity through even to characters such as Bost, who is revealed to have serious moments of terror that, while he completely glances over, still give us some feeling that he isn't a walking manly-man corpse.
This is an even more suffocating novel than Hotel Splendid. I admit, part of my rating was because of my discomfort through these pages, but I understand that was part of what Redonnet was trying to instill. Still, even Hotel Splendid had glimmers of hope and 'togetherness' despite the bitter conflicts in that book. Nevermore is just bleak, bleak, bleak. Everyone is too deceived and confused to even begin to act in a just way. Ideological justifications and poor education in a corrupt city lead to stagnation and shame. In the end, no one knows how to break out. Envy, mutual hatred (though everyone suffers here) are the hellish masters, and in San Rosa everyone glances over that with artifice, 'practicality', and domineering pleasure (the flipside of hatred). I know now the pain Redonnet was trying to convey.
This book is written very well, as expected from Redonnet; the sentences are both laconic and lucid, short but packed with innocence and meaning (even when the characters are unlikable and terrible).
It's very hard to stomach thematically however. The book concerns a fictional city (I love Redonnet's use of unreal and dreamlike locations) which is filled with corruption. Most of the characters in the book are simply puppets to money and greed. There are some gross sex scenes that were hard to stomach because they were from the perspective of either abusive people, or cold men only looking for thrills, but I felt they truly added to the urgency of what Redonnet was trying to convey. She tried to find little bits of solidarity between confused and oppressed people in this dystopian hellscape. San Rosa is a coastal town near a volcano, and the beautiful gleams of the sea give us a nice contrast to the grime of the town.
All of the characters have something of a starring role in the seemingly small world of San Rosa, but the introductory character is Willy Bost. He seems like a parody of the typical hard-boiled, cold as iron detective. He gets called to San Rosa for who knows why (only later in the novel does San Rosa start to abound in mysteries). He is quite cynical and disdainful of people around him, and us, the readers, are often going to be obligated to return the favor and be disdainful for this unlikeable clown who takes himself too seriously. Nonetheless, Redonnet's strength is that she lets glimmers of humanity through even to characters such as Bost, who is revealed to have serious moments of terror that, while he completely glances over, still give us some feeling that he isn't a walking manly-man corpse.
This is an even more suffocating novel than Hotel Splendid. I admit, part of my rating was because of my discomfort through these pages, but I understand that was part of what Redonnet was trying to instill. Still, even Hotel Splendid had glimmers of hope and 'togetherness' despite the bitter conflicts in that book. Nevermore is just bleak, bleak, bleak. Everyone is too deceived and confused to even begin to act in a just way. Ideological justifications and poor education in a corrupt city lead to stagnation and shame. In the end, no one knows how to break out. Envy, mutual hatred (though everyone suffers here) are the hellish masters, and in San Rosa everyone glances over that with artifice, 'practicality', and domineering pleasure (the flipside of hatred). I know now the pain Redonnet was trying to convey.
June 21, 2013
I love Marie Redonnet's vibe. Her style is so unique, and the way she vibrates her similar lines against each other, looping and mutating, is so effective. This is another great work, but it never quite rises to the level of her absolutely sublime _Rose Mellie Rose_, nor even quite to the other two novels in that brilliant triptych, _Hotel Splendid_ and _Forever Valley_. There remain some lovely stretches here, but I think the mix of plot and prose isn't quite the perfect mix she had in those three.
That said, as usual she brings it home with great effect. I also appreciated her effort here to cast a wider net, to attempt to speak the larger situation, the inescapable political/societal situation of corruption and exploitation, hidden motives and betrayal. In that sense, it feels still very of the moment. Alas.
That said, as usual she brings it home with great effect. I also appreciated her effort here to cast a wider net, to attempt to speak the larger situation, the inescapable political/societal situation of corruption and exploitation, hidden motives and betrayal. In that sense, it feels still very of the moment. Alas.
January 8, 2023
What to make of this short novel? Like all of Redonnet's books it is strange and unsettling and told in a very matter-of-fact style. The setting of the book is in a city which is is nowhere and yet, one feels, must be somewhere on the border between the USA and Mexico. I found this a compelling read, although I did not like it quite as much as Hotel Splendid and other novels of hers I have read. As in Forever Valley, the sexual encounters in the novel are quite shocking - for me, the lack of emotion in these encounters is what I find uncomfortable. All the same, if you like the surreal, the absurd and the political, this is definitely worth your time.
September 12, 2024
Exceedingly fun to see her in Americana-fetish. Really interesting socio-historically, manifest destiny, Hollywood; she's diving into it! Plotting pretty awesomely dynamic, the set pieces do tend to feel a little chokingly static at times, but it's interesting how this is pretty specifically tied into the book/narrative-as-botched-detective/(auto)biographical work done by a man wracked by pathology... not my fav of hers but soooo tonally interesting/singular as always
January 30, 2025
A mysterious little book, in part due to Redonnet’s poetics; massive gulfs of inconsequence opening up at the foot of each period. Some affinities with Twin Peaks here too which has been on my mind lately
April 30, 2024
What a crazy book.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews