Crush

This is a very short read that packs a wallop. In just 160 pages it brings all its characters to such vivid life that you will feel like you are in the French town of Léopoldville in the 1950s. Louise is so infatuated with the life of an American couple that she leaves everything behind to become their maid. Once living with them, she realizes that her perfect dream is not all that flawless. Just like a train rushing to crush a car stopped in its tracks, the conclusion is inevitable - and heartbreaking. I'never heard of Mr. Dard, but apparently he was a very prolific writer in his native France. Crush may not be a spectacular thriller, but more of a psychological slow-boiler that will really get under your skin. Very, very good.

In this story of Thelma and Louise, it's Louise we meet first, through her narration. She's a seventeen year old, telling us of a quite awful and smelly satellite town of Paris she lives in, with the sight of factories and stench of food processing plants keeping her company. She lives at home with her mother, complete with hare-lip, and abusive step-father, and is working at one of those factories until she sees a paradise in their midst – the ever-sunny, sexy and sophisticated life of an American NATO worker and his wife. Impulsively, she asks to be their maid – and indeed moves into the couple's large, messy home. But little does she know what lurks in the shadows in that building, behind their gigantic car and their cute porch swing and al-fresco dining – the unhappiness, and even the tragedy…

This is a book that is kind of belittled by being called a 'crime novel', even if it is definitely one, and one on the short side at that. For one thing there are the characters – Louise is a brilliantly-realised little minx – not too naïve, not really gamine, but definitely someone worth spending time with. She immediately takes to the housework, with a stylish way with flambéing pigeons out of revenge, economy and culinary nous. Her Thelma could come out of the pages of Tennessee Williams, with her choice of clothing as she louchely lounges about the place, drinking and listening to Elvis records. It's no wonder she met her husband on the road to New Orleans. He, Jess, is if anything a little undefined – we don't know (certainly at this remove, sixty years after this might have been current) what he actually does for NATO, but it's the world he lives in – internally and externally – that is of most concern to these pages.

And these pages rattle past – even with the crunching events of practically halfway you won't be too keen on too long a pause before you're back for more. The writing is simple, with a clarity that you wouldn't get from trying any certain, particular style, but it's all there – the humdrum life Louise is leaving, and what she hopes to get from moving in with the others, proves this work has psychological astuteness as well as great story-telling nous. As I suggested, there is a slight element of age to the book – it does date from the late 1950s, after all, but it's been translated very well, and while a little bit of the writing may have been trying to be risqué back then it's not so much that now as still about timeless, base human emotions. I'll leave you to interpret the English title of the book in regard to those emotions, as well as let you in on the French original name being The Villains. I can't tell you which is more accurate, or better, in any regard, as I don't know. I would tell you that I'd think on it – but these tightly effective little pages will be in my mind for several days to come, anyway. Four and a half stars

"And you will never know how big that green car seemed, or how deliciously it smelt of America.”

Pushkin Vertigo continues its very impressive output of unusual crime books through another venture into Frédéric Dard territory with a third title: Crush, a tale of longing, obsession, and murder. The double meaning of the title becomes horribly clear around the book’s halfway point.


Bird in a Cage and The Wicked Go To Hell , earlier Dard releases from Pushkin Vertigo, were both told by a male narrator. In Crush, we have a seventeen year old female narrator, Louise, who lives in Northern France in a very unpleasant town named Léopoldville. The place is ugly, dominated by a large chemical factory, “chimney stacks spewing out great clouds of smoke that seem to stretch up into the sky for ever before falling back down on the town below,” and the air stinks of cabbage. Things aren’t much better at Louise’s home; she lives with a mother she’s ashamed of and her mother’s live-in boyfriend, Arthur, in a wreck of a rented home.

In common with most of the other people in the town, Louise works in a factory. In order to glam up her dull life, Louise, who longs for escape, begins walking through the moneyed areas of Léopoldville and is entranced by glimpses of the lives of an affluent American couple, Mr and Mrs Rooland. She begins dawdling outside of their home:

At first sight, it looked like the others: two storeys, an arrowshaped weathervane sitting on top of the gable roof, with little stained glass windows and some steps leading up to a front door flanked by light-blue earthenware pots… But what set it apart was a funny sort of feeling that floated in the air around the house. How can I explain it? It seemed like it was somewhere else. Yes, it was a Léopoldville house, but it existed on a sort of desert island all of its own. A tiny, mysterious island, and one where the natives seemed to live bloody well too.

Walking by this house becomes a habit for Louise. She sees the Roolands relaxing on a swing seat sipping whisky at dusk while jazz music plays as background noise.

I can’t tell you how enchanting the atmosphere of that garden was, with the beautiful, shining car, that music, those drinks that you could tell were wonderfully chilled, and that couple, gently swinging while the seat creaked.

One day, after being slapped by Arthur, Louise gathers the courage to approach the Roolands and she asks them if they want a maid, a rare commodity in Léopoldville, as factory work pays better than domestic service. The Roolands employ Louise, but the dream life Louise saw from the outside doesn’t really exist. The house is a disorganized mess, and Mrs Rooland has a drinking problem. …

Louise, our somewhat unreliable narrator, tells the story in retrospect, in an intimate, near confessional style. As she digs into the Rooland household, managing to live-in and proving through her hard work that she’s indispensable, the spectre of the Roolands returning to America clouds any future fantasies. Dard includes some foreshadowing, some intense, dramatic scenes of violent weather that match the narrative, and rather ironically, IMO, the American car (s) play a huge role in this tale of betrayal and revenge. To say more would spoil the tale for the next reader, but fans of the Pushkin Vertigo line should enjoy this. Of the three Dard novels released to date, The Wicked Go To Hell is my favourite.

Review copy

Translated by Daniel Seton

(original French title: Les Scélérats)

As with all good noir fiction, this tale is told in first person narrative by Louise, a 17yo French girl, unhappy with her own mundane life, envies a wealthy American couple in the area, and inserts herself into their lives. And until the final twist at the end, you are never quite sure in which direction you are being led.

A chilling and psychologically dark Fifties tale of suspense of jealousy and murder, that is trademark Frederic Dard from stsart to finish. His depiction of the naivety and gaucheness of Louise, is never less than perfectly realised, as she inveigles herself in the life of the glamorous but tormented couple, the Roolands. In a relatively short novel, Dard ratchets up both the suspense, and depth of character with some lighter vignettes featuring Louise’s awful relatives too. You know you are being led on a path of self destruction from early on, and as you view the self combustion of the characters, you almost feel guilty for watching. Wasn’t entirely convinced by the abruptness, and rather unfinished feel of the ending, but time spent with Dard is never entirely wasted, as the rest of this dark tale testifies. Recommended.