While lots of people consider this novel to be satire I have to say I do not see it as such. Reason is I have come across people with characters as those portrayed in this novel and trust me these types of personality are more common in real world than one would admit. As a matter of fact not a single character in this novel is exaggeration of any sort. For me this makes novel very real one (and very sad one).

Alain - mid-level manager (although he likes to say he is working man with no managerial ambitions) who gets let go due to "restructuring within company" feels cheated and considering that he is not anymore in what is considered prime years hits the rock bottom. He decides to achieve his goals no matter what and is ready to walk over the dead bodies if necessary. Did he finally achieve what he wanted? Realistically yes. For those more romantic and idealistic answer would be no. But I would go for realistic.

Charles - Alain's friend. Some would say he is simple, he is not. Where it not for the Charles' of the world, people trusting the system, people that get mauled ever so often by that very system but who keep pushing on there would be no system. When they finally understand they are defeated they are ready to repay any kindness they receive - usually whoever they help forgets them after few minutes. You may call them door-mats I call them reminders of what it is to be human in a world where people trust nobody and are ready to backstab on first possible opportunity.

Nicole (and daughters) - the high morale holders. They are willing to carry the burden but I wonder 'till when. People like Alain are very difficult when things are not going their way so ... lets say it is questionable if his wife would stay with him (since Alain is a storyteller and he is very much in love with his wife we are left assuming she would but then again... would she?). Also daughters tend to come to their parents very often but I do not see them helping a lot (birthday presents notwithstanding) although they are aware of the situation. Pretty opportunistic but again something you see in every day life.

Management of Exxyol and HR company - depictions of your everyday manager. Cool, ruthless and ready to cake themselves in opposition's blood to prove how mighty they are. Until secrets are revealed after which they break down and are rather ready to die then be publicly shamed. They are also very prone to using violence as long as they do not know the details and keep their hands celan. People's lives mean nothing to them.

As for Fontana and his team, these are standard cutthroat types. One of the reviewers said they are not sure how Fontana & co got outsmarted but there was nothing in the novel hinting they were outsmarted. Where it not for the final twist everything would end up very very differently.

I especially liked news like "CEO of X and Y embezzled & billions of Euros", "Exquisite profits for company A, record breaking year" followed by "Unemployment grows" and "Company A had to release thousands of employees due to financial situation" spread throughout the novel - usual dumb news fed to the people. Interestingly majority would just go over it because everybody hopes to be at the top and who cares about the bottom feeders and stragglers. We like to think we are above this as society but we are not. Many people I know who used to talk a lot about corporations' "evil" etc ended up working for the same - no regret at all (plus side being that they stopped with their speeches).

Translation to English is great, story flows so naturally and grabs you from start and you need to stop reading in order to savor the story.

Excellent novel that pushes all the buttons about our society and values in general. One of the defining elements of our society is conflict but one would suspect fellow men would be more sympathetic. Unfortunately in this date and time they are not (although we like to say and think that situation is opposite). Unfortunately man is still a wolf to fellow man.

Highly recommended to fans of thriller and drama genre. ( )

Con humor, crudeza y un realismo brutal, Lemaitre explora el lado más inmoral del mundo empresarial y los efectos perversos que el desempleo puede llegar a tener en cualquiera de nosotros.

«Me llamo Alain Delambre y tengo cincuenta y siete años. Soy un directivo en paro.»

El antaño flamante director de recursos humanos Alain Delambre ha perdido toda esperanza de encontrar trabajo y se siente cada vez más marginado. Cuando una empresa de reclutamiento considera su candidatura, está dispuesto a todo con tal de conseguir el empleo y recuperar su dignidad, desde mentir a su esposa hasta pedirle dinero a su hija para poder participar en la prueba final del proceso de selección: un simulacro de toma de rehenes. Sin embargo, la ira acumulada en años de agravios no tiene límites... y el juego de rol puede convertirse en un macabro juego de muerte.

La novela ganadora del Premio de Novela Negra Europea, por el ganador del Premio Goncourt, tres Dagger Awards, el Premio Best Novel Valencia Negra y el Premio San Clemente, con más de 3.000.000 de lectores.

Reseñas:

«Contundente, irritante, piadosa y violenta. Recursos inhumanos es la historia que todo escritor querría escribir sobre nuestro presente deshumanizado. Uno de estos libros con el "síndrome Harry Quebert": una vez empezado, no se puede parar.»

Sergio Pent, L'Unità

«Leo a Pierre Lemaitre, un excelente escritor de suspense.»

Stephen King

«Lemaitre disfruta de lo lindo rompiendo convenciones y jugando con ellas porque las conoce bien y maneja los géneros con la habilidad de un prestidigitador.»

Javier Aparicio Maydeu, Babelia

«Un ejemplo brillante de cómo el género noir puede sacar ventajas de la crisis. Una trama dolorosa, pero placentera y atrevida a la vez, que consigue vengar a todos los desempleados, reales y potenciales.»
Le Magazine littéraire

«Su maquinaria se revela infernal. ¡Bravo! Cada capítulo parece un esprint: anotamos los puntos, cerramos los puños.»

Brigitte Hernandez, Le Point

«Lemaitre, hoy por hoy, el mejor y más en forma novelista noir galo, un tipo capaz de pisarle los talones al maestro (Banville) Black, en destreza narrativa y musculoso magnetismo literario.»

Laura Fernández, El Cultural

«Lemaitre se despacha a conciencia con el capitalismo. Un trepidante y, por momentos, incómodo thriller laboral, tan literario como cualquier novela de Raymond Chandler o Benjamin Black.»

Laura Fernández y Matías Néspolo, El Mundo

«Ácido noir en el que el mordaz novelista francés dirige el cañón contralo más miserable del entorno empresarial. Absténganse directores de personal. O no...»

Victor Rodríguez, Expansión

«Un gran libro. La obra maestra de una de las figuras de la novela negra actual. Una visión muy afilada del mundo de los desempleados y de cómo el paro puede afectar a la psicología de las personas y conducirlas a unos límites que no sospechaban de sí mismas cuando todo les iba bien.»

Benjamín Prado, Radio 3

«Completamente diferente. [...] Auténtica buena literatura, de esa que cercena viejos mitos [...]. Una novela imprescindible para recordarnos cuáles son los principales problemas del mundo moderno. [...] Una joya literaria.»

Daniel Martín Ferrand, República

More on Chill and read


The past few years, unemployment has become a huge issue in every country in this world, not only the poor ones. It is more so, that people of age are the ones to be fired first, because of all those years they have been working and the relatively large paycheck they may have. Younger employees tend to be cheaper for the companies.

One of those laid off people of age is Alain Delambre, a 57 year old man, former HR executive in a big company. It has been now four years in the unemployment state and it is geting worse by the minute. He is trying to find something, anything to occupy himself, but who would possibly hire someone of his age? He does find some low-level part time positions, but they are not enough to keep him going. He still needs to pay for the mortgage of his house. Thankfully his wife Nicole, still has a job, but it is not enough.

When a recruitment company finally invites him for a test and then an interview, Alain is determined to make this work. To use his experience in the Human Resources field and get this job. He will do whatever it take to be the first in the finish line of this somewhat peculiar interview. Because, the whole interview thing is going to be a role play game of a hostage taking situation and Alain and the other candidates are going to make the interrogations. Alain is determined to go beyond himself to get this job. He won’t deviate from his course. He will deceive his own family, only to take what he needs, what will help him reach his target. He will become estrange to his own wife and daughters, but he is only trying to make things better for all of them. How can they not see it?

The author creates true, authentic and relatable characters. People that could be your next door neighbors, people that suffered and then it all get’s so much different and so much crazy. From some point on, I could not understand why Alain was behaving in that specific way. What did he have to gain by hurting his own family. How could a job like that make everything be normal again. I understand that he felt humiliated from an incident in his part time job and he was so desperate to get a real job again, one that would make him once more the person he used to be. But he just crossed a line, I would not see possible for a normal person to cross. But then again he was so desperate, he was not thinking clearly.

That being said, the pacing of the story was fairly good for me. It would give both the psychological aspect the main character was on, as well as how his actions would affect his environment and first and foremost his relationship with his wife and daughters. Ever since he lost his job he is a different man and this is very clear from the narration. This is what he tries to recover. His own self.

I received a complimentary ecopy from the publisher via NetGalley. The views expressed are my personal and honest opinion. ( )

Alain Delambre is a 57-year-old former HR executive who has been out of work for four years. He started out hopeful of returning to a suitable job, but the years have taken their toll as only menial jobs present themselves and he is faced with daily reminders of the life he once had in the faces of his wife and adult daughters and all around his not-quite-paid-off apartment. When he is called in for an HR position at a major company, Alain prepares for the interview as if his life depended on it. He risks everything in his preparation, risks his family’s scorn, and agrees to participate in a mock hostage scenario as part of the interview, certain that it will all be worth it once the job is his. When Alain realizes the odds have been stacked against him, he envisions his future crashing around him and what should have been a role-playing game takes on deadly overtones.

Pierre Lemaitre has created a standout novel with characters that earn your sympathy even as you cringe at their actions. Lemaitre spins the story out slowly and lets you fully inhabit the world of the characters before the main events spring into action. He lets you feel the weight of what a lengthy term of unemployment does to you, especially in a country with high unemployment. This, in turn, makes it easier to understand the lengths to which someone might go to restore the sense of self-worth they feel holding a job in their chosen field. Even as you understand that wrong decisions are being made, you can empathize with why one might make them, and how each bad decision leads to the next. You feel the whirlpool of events pulling down on the character and share the sense of inescapability.

Lemaitre tells the story in a linear fashion, but with twists and turns that keep you off balance. His characters are richly described and his descriptive powers bring both the physical locations to life as well as the emotional state of the characters. It reminds me in some ways of a cross between a Hitchcock film and Breaking Bad. Delambre views his own actions through a moral kaleidoscope which is constantly shifting and adjusting to a new normal.

Lemaitre does something unique with the character of Alain Delambre. He tells his story (mostly) from Delambre’s point of view, but he simultaneously lets you view things through Alain’s eyes and also lets you view the situation with greater clarity than Delambre ever achieves. This is a remarkable accomplishment. It gives the reader a greater sense of the unfolding and resulting tragedy than the character ever realizes. This more than anything else elevates the book from merely a great suspense thriller to one of the best books of the year.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher. ( )

A very nice book.
It keeps you on edge from the very first page untill the end of the book wondering what will be next, how things will turn out.
A few times I felt the urge to shake Alain Delambre, to get him back to earth, to reality. But of course I didn't ;-P The series of events start and one logically follows another, it's inevitable that the story goes like it does, no matter how sad, stupid, pathetic it may seem. There are (from Alain's point of view) no other options than the one he has chosen and that's why the book ends like it does.
Not a nice ending, but absolutely one that fits the book. ( )