The American magazine Kirkus called the genre of this novel “fisherman’s noir”. Black literature, an outdoor thriller, mid-thigh fishy water, which begins as “nature writing”, as the Gallmeister editions coined it, to slide into the anguish of a mystery of more and more disturbing. The “guide” of the title is Jack. It’s his first day on a vast estate where a few hyper-rich come to indulge in the “purest” sport of fly fishing. Jack carries around the trauma of believing himself responsible for the death of his mother and his best friend. But his first client, Alison K., a famous, radiant singer, has everything to make him forget this dark side. Except that between ecstatic trout hunts, moments of complicity and nascent flirtation, strange, disturbing things are grafted, like a stray ball, a fishing boot abandoned, then disappeared, from the disturbed earth. The friendly environment becomes threatening. Death lurks in the most beautiful setting. Were you planning on relaxing? Go your way.
The Guide, by Peter Heller. Translated from English (United States) by Céline Leroy (Actes Sud, 302 p., €22.80). The River (Babel).
The extract that kills Throughout his life, when he had to face situations that were really hard, disturbing or barely bearable as they were beautiful, Jack had gone fishing. In joy as in heartache, he had sinned. He had fished when his mother had died, when Cheryl had told him she loved him more than anything, when he had been accepted into Dartmouth. He had fished after losing Wynn, and when his father had told him very softly to come home. He had discovered that fishing was less a way to distract himself than to reconnect: to what was best in him, to a discipline that required keeping his senses available to the nuances of the seasons, to the instrument that It was his body, its agility or its fatigue. Above all, it required absolute concentration, and he had convinced himself that there was no better way to love. – or by the invisible Den – he could, at this moment, do nothing but fish. Often, when Jack ran into an unsolvable problem, he found a solution after a long session on the river. They grabbed their rods and raced down the steps. When they got to the river, they branched off downstream. It was the sweetest of trails. On any other late summer morning, the meandering lava, the gravel bars where the white moths flitted in the sunlight and landed on the purple asters – it would all have gladdened his heart. But that morning, they walked as if they were going to rush a job that they both disliked. Halfway through the fence, Jack slipped through an opening between the alders and entered the current which, a few yards from the bank, poured over a large rock, foaming and roaring. No one would hear them. She followed him and they stood there, shoulder to shoulder and knee-deep in water in a pool infused with bubbles created by the small cataract. Jack slid his fanny pack over the front, opened it, and spoke, selecting a fly. “So I was telling you I went out for a bike ride this morning.” “OK.” very difficult. But pretend I’m giving you tips on nymphs. OK?”“OK.”
