. . . is a French writer who was described in this
Sunday's New York Times Book Review as being influenced by
Gustave Flaubert and Dashiell Hammett. Sounds interesting. So
does the first sentence of the book under review,
"Piano": [Max] is afraid. He is going to die a violent death
in 22 days but, as he is yet unaware of this, that is not
what he is afraid of." We then learn that Max is a pianist
gripped by stage fright and alcoholism - which makes me think
we can add Goodis to Echenoz' list of influences.
The reviewer writes that Echenoz' "sardonic take on Hammett's
harid-boiled detective fiction is pure art" - but then also
adds that his PI's are"soft-boiled investigators - they're
not even real detectives, just guys chasing someone." And
then when I searched the archives, the only referenceto
Echenoz I found was from 1999 by Mark Sullivan, who in
response to a query about French noir available in the U.S.
wrote, "Jean Echenoz doesn't really count as noir, does
he?"
Five years later, does anyone have anything to add?
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