The Weak Spot

The pharmacy was somewhere in Europe in a part of the country "that deviants run away to in books, a place for murders, thieves...a landscape full of abrupt drops, deep craters...I wanted to see if I could measure up to this wildness...so I applied..." to be a pharmacist's apprentice. After completing a two-month mentorship with Mr. Malone and being approved by the pharmaceutical board, I would be a full fledged pharmacist. Local legend described this isolated town as "The Land of the Beast"- an extraordinary beast in the mountains was said to have eaten girls alive in days of old. "By all rights, I shouldn't have inserted myself into this close-knit mountain town...", only accessible by funicular. Why this town? Why this pharmacy?

To the dwindling populace, Pharmacist Malone conveyed the image of a frugal, refined, hard working but authoritarian, fifty year old gentleman. He often positioned himself on a stool behind our unnamed narrator, and listened as she tried to master his method of serving the townspeople.
"[Mr. Malone] believed that a pharmacist's role was to enhance the locals' potential by listening carefully...to experience customers' needs more urgently and their disappointments more keenly than [one's] own." "All our talking was not part of any sales strategy...the customers came in one by one and disclosed, as if at confession, and usually left without spending a cent." Soon Mr. Malone "appeared to have delegated his whole job to me...his mentorship would be of the more oblique, unscientific kind...". Why? Mr. Malone stated his political aspirations-to be mayor of the town.

"I tried to embody a youthful energy...often sacrificed safety or comfort for the sense that [I was] giving or saving...[but] the more abstinent I seemed, the more [the customers] talked. I was distracted by daydreams...I fantasized about being a mannequin". As manipulative Mr. Malone campaigned for mayor and the atmosphere became more sinister, our narrator emerged from her fog and began to "think and feel" for herself.


The Weak Spot" by debut author Lucie Elven introduces the reader to the cast of residents in the remote town. The unconventional characters included a historian, a gossipy market seller, an opinionated accountant, and a funicular driver. Mr. Malone's political game created "an aura of crisis" in creepy, fable-like fashion in this unpredictable novel. An excellent read, however, it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

Thank you Soft Skull Press and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found the unnerving tension that builds in the background of this short fable-adjacent book incredibly compelling. There is a strangeness to this book which, although they differ wildly in plot, brings to mind the Memory Police or Fever Dream— suspenseful stories of visiting a place cut off from reality. In The Weak Spot, it’s a tiny town atop a mountain with a secluded square housing a pharmacy and little else, and where the narrator is working before being certified as a pharmacist. She meets under Mr Malone, who runs the shop and has an immediate disliking to her, her co-worker Elsa, who harbours a family resentment over a garden plot, and the other townsfolk. The pharmacy operates in a slightly unorthodox manner, something not dissimilar to talk therapy and as she hears more of the townsfolks’ problems, the narrator becomes increasingly caught up in their lives. As Malone’s nefarious character is revealed in a few small but arresting anecdotes and he plans a mayoral run, the narrator fears the power he holds over the townsfolk and their secrets. At the same time, she becomes directly implicated in his campaign, taking over duties from a troubled employee who abruptly leaves town. As she struggles to maintain boundaries between herself and her employer, the narrator hardens slightly in her mannerisms before realizing what it is she really feels and acting in accordance with her inner state. At times it is difficult to grasp the severity of what is really at stake; this may be due in part to the narrator’s careful detachment, the archetypal positioning of certain characters, or my own failure in fully conveying the strange, disquieting mood that the book inhabits.

I'm at a loss to adequately describe this short novel about a young - unnamed- woman serving an apprenticeship of sorts to a pharmacist in a European village reachable only by a funicular. She relates what she's told by the customers who are all just a tad askew. There's a sense of menace based on tales about the region but what will happen? Not much, actually. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's unusual and others might find more meaning in it than I did. For fans of literary fiction.

One simple declarative sentence after another, each more surprising than the last, makes this novel a delightfully propulsive read. Elven’s writing reminds me of the surrealist master Leonora Carrington who also had the rare talent of writing sentences that kept in going in ever more surprising directions. This novel didn’t just make me laugh with surprise at where the sentences were taking me. I actually snorted now and then. In a good way.

I don’t think the book description does justice to the eerie fun that this book provides its reader. What an unexpected pleasure.

<I> When I had rushed to the town and moved into the empty house, I bought chairs on the internet, surprised by their quick shipping and apparent value for the money. When they arrived they turned out to be made for a dollhouse, no more than a thumb high. I returned them with apologies and compliments to their maker, but not before I had arranged them in each of the empty rooms, by the kitchen table, at the food of my bed, next to the bathroom sink, to see them dwarfed by the surroundings. I found this very funny and had to sit down on the side of the tub. In the mirror I could see telltale silver hairs, somehow longer than the others, streaking my crown. It occurred to me that there was something comforting about the obviously dangerous Mr. Malone to someone like me who worried all the time....</I>

Just great fun and a delight to read.

The Weak Spot by Lucie Elven may trip up the reader expecting a straightforward novel about a young woman with no connection to her past .beginning her career in a new city. It is that. It is not realistic or reminiscent of other "coming of age" novels you know. Consider it a dream that IS realistic. When we dream we accept what comes and only later make note of meaning and connections to daily reality. This is a short book which could and probably should be read in a gulp to achieve that effect.