Red Lights (New York Review Books Classics) (edition 2006)

A compact story, following a couple as they embark on a trip on a Labor Day weekend, and the events that befall them. Things are already going wrong in their lives; this trip develops and crystallizes this. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about this - in fact, it is the ordinary nature of the events that lead to this crisis that makes it interesting. We are shown the thoughts, extremes of emotion, the daily grind, the effects of Steve's drinking on the couple, and into the mix is thrown an escaped convict..... The events that follow lead to a full-blown crisis and epiphany part of Steve Hogan particularly, but also his wife Nancy Hogan.

I read this book previously, but coming to it again after a long break, I am much more impressed with it now. I think this is because on the second read, I didn't come to it directly from the Maigret stories. ( )

Red Lights, Georges Simenon
Let's front-load this by saying that RED LIGHTS is imperfect. It's a thriller on the smallest scale, obsessed with the domestic and the inane, shredding its fingers on throw-away details and half hours. It's also a little hinky in terms of pacing and resolution; not all the pieces fit together, and the ending is a bit ramshackle and far from air-tight.

Let's also say that it is also claustrophobic, creeping, and eerie; a beautiful replica in miniature of common horrors. Simenon's writing is lean and functional and an absolute incantation. God knows "Evocative" has got to be one of the most over-abused adjectives in the history of reviews, but goddamn EVOCATIVE IS WHAT THIS IS. Simenon has a supernatural ability to drill in the teeth-grinding frustration and terror of everyday life, and he perfectly captures the wooziness of drunkeness, the slow-burn ache of a hangover, and, yeah, the next-day sound of the bottom of your heart dropping out. Read it. It's very fast, it's very mean, and - for all its prickling flaws, mostly clustered near the end quarter; the beginning half, I'd argue is glassy perfection - excellent. ( )

Although he is most famous for creating the character Inspector Maigret, Georges Simenon dabbled in a particularly dark form of fiction called romans durs. (I would have just called it noir, but what do I know?) According to Anita Brookner's introduction to RED LIGHTS, Simenon's romans durs followed a simple formula: "A life will go wrong, usually because of an element in the protagonist's make-up which impels him to self-destruct, to willfully seek disgrace, exclusion, ruin in his search for a fulfillment and a fatal freedom which take on an aura of destiny."

Pretty highfalutin words, huh? (Still sounds like noir to me.) Well, let me tell you about the story and put it in more concrete terms. It all starts when Steve Hogan and his wife, Nancy, head out from New York City to Maine to pick up their children from summer camp. Steve has a few to drink before he hits the road (much to Nancy's dismay), then has a few more on the way. The more Steve drinks, the more pissed Nancy gets. And the more pissed Nancy gets, the more Steve tries to assert himself--by drinking (what else?).

At some point, Steve does something he calls "going into the tunnel"--sort of like heading down a dark road that you know is the wrong way, but you can't turn back.

Eventually, Nancy gets so angry when Steve stops to drink, she just leaves while he's in the bar. Walks off into the night to catch a bus to Maine--or so Steve thinks.

Things get a bit more complicated for Steve, when he finds an escaped convict hiding in his car. Sid Halligan seems to represent something admirable to Steve--a complete disrespect for authority and ordinary living that Steve aspires to (at least, while he's drunk).

I don't have to tell you that this misplaced admiration doesn't make Steve's life any easier, do I? In fact, his alliance with Halligan has consequences--dire ones and not just for Steve.

The entire review is available online at http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2009/07/red-lights-takes-you-into-tunnel.html ( )

Steve and Nancy are on their annual Labor Day trek to pick up their children from camp. Their lives are fairly droll and ordinary, though pain lays just under the surface of their routine existence. As the trip begins, Steve insists on drinking more and more alcohol, making frequent pit stops to imbibe. Nancy, fed up with his selfish behavior threatens to leave and he challenges her by taking the keys to the car with him on one of his bar stops. When he returns, Nancy is gone. Assuming she traveled on by way of the bus, Steve, now free to do as he pleases, continues his bar crawl, meeting up with an escpaed convict. The convict presses Steve for a ride and Steve, eager for intrigue, willingly agrees. Steve wakes up in his car the next morning, behind the wheel of his car, his wallet stolen and his wife missing, as she never reached the children's camp. The rest of the story follows Steve's search for his wife and his penance for his night of selfish living.

Rich and brooding, this novels tension builds with every paragraph, expressed in the description of Steve's inner thoughts of annoyance with Nancy, a gathering thunderstorm, and the frequent reports of traffic fatalities reported on the radio. Though Steve seems unable to describe his feelings about his wife, it soon becomes clear that his loathe for his wife is a substitution for his own self loathing. Nancy's cool, unflappable veneer only infuriates Steve further. Though Nancy's stoic visage bely her true emotions, evident only in her final abandonment of Steve.

Without giving too much away, the novel ends with the Steve and Nancy's redemption and reconnection. Through suffering, the two are able to final express their own shortcomings to one another and regain a companionship they lost over the routine days of their marriage. Steve finally directs his critical eye inward and discovers why he chose to engage and befriend the criminal, hoping to see something in the convict that he felt missing. In truth, what Steve was missing was respect and honor for the life he was living. When Steve is finally forced to honestly value the things in his life, he realizes that his own shortcomings and is put on the path to self love and love for those around him again.

In an introduction to this edition, Simenon's overarching theme is described. "A life will go wrong, usually because of an element in the protagonist's make-up which impels him to self-destruct, to willfully seek disgrace, exclusion, ruin in his search for a fulfillment adn a fatal freedom which take on an aura of destiny." This seemed a fairly apt general description of the plot of this book. What made the book really breathe for me, though, was that the characters, their lives and emotions, jumped off the page. Simenon did not describe Steve's descent in a sterile and disconnected way. Rather, he made it seem the same descent which lies just outside the day to day decisions for us all.

Highly recommended.

5 bones!!!!! ( )