Voix sans issue

Couldn't get into it. ( )

This debut novel by Curiol, a French journalist, was shortlisted for two awards in 2009, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Best Translated Book Award. The main character is a woman in her late twenties who works as an announcer at Paris' Gare du Nord train station. She is an attractive but average woman in her mind, and her coworkers characterize her as cold, withdrawn and strange. She develops an attraction to a man who she has known for a long time, but he is living with another woman, Ange, in what appears to be a happy and stable relationship. One night at a dinner party he kisses her, and she soon is obsessed with him. She continues to see him—and Ange—at social gatherings, and she alleviates her growing despair and longing in alcohol and in meaningless encounters with strange men, including a female impersonator, an unemployed North African immigrant and a controlling psychiatric intern.

The man eventually realizes that she is madly in love with him. Her desire for him increases as they become closer, but her obsession also grows, and her grasp of reality begins to slip.

Reading this taut and captivating novel reminded me of the 1970s movie "Looking for Mr. Goodbar", and of The Guess Who song "Undun", as I wondered what she was going to do next. Definitely recommended. ( )

http://goethefi.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/celine-curiol-viimeinen-kuulutus/ ( )