Joseph Mitchell, Jérôme Garcin, Jan Carson… The selection of paperback books of the week

The New York chronicles of a giant of letters, a moving story about missing loved ones, a mysterious epidemic that only affects children… Our suggestions for books to slip into your pockets this week.

“The Bottom of the Harbor”, by Joseph Mitchell

Joseph Mitchell is a great writer who never published a single novel. Not for lack of having thought about it, however. Landing in New York at the time of the stock market crash of 1929, the young man from the countryside of North Carolina immersed himself so much in the tumult of Manhattan that he planned to write the absolute, urgent, devastating work. , to which he will graft the breath ofUlysses, of James Joyce, his hero. Joseph Mitchell is a journalist, not a novelist, and remains so throughout his life. As evidenced by The bottom of the port, magnificent collection of New York explorations which reaches us today, the author sets an elementary rule: he believes in what he writes and encourages us to follow him. — L.R.

Ed. From the Basement – Collection Underground13,00 €.

“My fragile ones”, by Jérôme Garcin

The succession of seasons punctuates the story in vain: the same sad sky envelops the end of summer and the beginning of spring – September 18, 2020 and March 26, 2021, dates on which, in the same Saint-Séverin church, “to the sound of the same Kyrie, the same Agnus Dei, the same Jesus, may my joy remain”, The funeral of Jérôme Garcin’s mother was held and, less than two hundred days later, those of Laurent, his younger brother. They are the “fragile” to which the title of this moving story refers. Behind the affliction and the feeling of irremediable loss, confided in modest words but without euphemism, there is nevertheless, furtively, the promise of future appeasement: “The more time passes, the more I believe in the presence of the dead. They are there, their soul remains, hovers and persists. » — Na.C.

Ed. Folio, €5.70.

“The Raptures”, by Jan Carson

In 2021, its fire throwers set us on fire with their “magical realism” as Jan Carson likes to define her own style. The Northern Irish author then delivered us to the flames of Belfast, those of arson ravaging the city, but also those which burn inside people and keep them alive. It returns to us under a title reflecting the emotion it provides, The Raptures, with writing that is just as harsh and magical, its own way of anchoring itself in reality to better explore its escape routes. And what reality! Jan Carson chose the most cumbersome, the most current, the most impenetrable: the pandemic, the scale of which she reduced here and transformed the core target. The “raptures” designate the fatal kidnappings of which students in the same class are victims, carried away one after the other by an unknown disease which only affects children around ten years old. The word “raptures” is also to be taken in the supernatural sense of the term, describing the second states in which Hannah, one of the little survivors of the town of Ballylack, finds herself plunged with each death of a comrade, who then visits her from the ‘beyond… — M.L.

Ed. I Read, €9.00.

“For the night draws near”, by Anna Enquist

four the previous novel by Dutch writer Anna Enquist ended with an explosive scene: an attack which upset the four musicians, central characters of the novel, suddenly helpless in the face of a man’s violence and the fear of death. Here they are again, poorly recovered from this event, physically and mentally. Caroline, the cellist, mutilated and depressed; Jochem, his violist companion, obsessed with safety; Hugo, such an elusive first violin; finally Heleen, second violin, thin and absent. The music that brought them together seems to push them apart, and each one uses trickery to avoid crossing paths with the others. The musical cocoon is torn and their gazes are lost when “the night is approaching”, with its share of anguish and memories… — C.F.

Ed. Babel, €8.90.

“The Desert Star”, by Michael Connelly

« The grumpy old local cop we were afraid of running into. » This is how Inspector Harry Bosch is now perceived by his neighbors in his latest investigation, The Desert Star. The label doesn’t matter to him and he almost finds it amusing. It must be said that the famous LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) cop, a semi-retired private detective, is no longer young. We celebrated last year the 30th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of his investigations in France (Los Angeles Sewers, published by Seuil in 1993), the character does not seem to be about to hang up his phone. Nor its author, Michael Connelly, 68 years old, to tire of this fictional double, about which he still has so much to say. — Y.L.-S.

Ed. The Pocket Book, €9.70.