This is my third NDiaye and each has been quite different. I am not sure what I think of this one--I think I would like it so much more if I had someone to discuss it with. I have a lot of thoughts (all are spoilers) and wonder how others interpret the story, if I missed any hints, if my kind-of understanding makes sense, and so on.

Here we have Maitre Susane, a lawyer from a modest background. Middle-aged, never married, no children. Mildly successful, in that she can support herself, but not as successful as she dreamed she would be--or as she thinks her parents expected her to be.

When a new client comes to her office with the biggest case of her career, she wonders why. Is this man the boy she remembers from her past? And what does she remember?

With an extremely unreliable narrator who does not remember her own story and is led (astray or not?) by her elderly parents, the reader has no idea what actually happened on that day, who this man is, why her housekeeper and only serious ex she had are so chummy, and if everything is related or she is imagining them to be. ( )

Je ne sais pas in Bordeaux

If you read an individual page at random, I’m pretty sure you’d think it belonged to a well-written edgy mystery. Unfortunately I read the whole book.

I chose to read Vengeance is Mine partly because the New Yorker praised it, honoring it with its listing in The Best Books of 2023.

The prose is elegant, and every paragraph conveys an air of menace. Plus, book starts off well. But that’s about it. It goes nowhere. I can’t understand what The New Yorker saw in it. I don’t understand what it’s about, but then I don’t understand The New Yorker cartoons either.

I was annoyed as I kept expecting things to come together as the MC Maître Susane obsesses with every little thing including her own thoughts. The book is all over the place both geographically and mentally, with subplot after subplot defying logic. NDiaye builds up suspense with French panache, only for the reader to realize she’s going nowhere. In short, I have no idea what this book is about.

And so there’s no synopsis and nothing left to say except to give this book a miss. ( )

Crime and defence—France

I kept dreading Maître Susane‘s exposure of self as she took on the defence case for Marlyne Principaux. Three children murdered by their mother. Why does their father, Gilles Principaux, step back into the past and select an inexperienced lawyer who might or might not have had contact with him as a child, a long lost love even. Am I reading too much into the sinister vibe I’m sensing?
I found this quite disturbing in its disjointedness and memories that may not be. The ending is unclear. The whole novel grapples with clarity, or maybe it’s me that grapples for reality.
In the end, whilst intellectually sympathetic with Maître Susane, emotionally I found I didn’t really care. I just keep thinking about the three hours I won’t get back again!

A Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. ( )