An under-recognized writer and an outstanding short story writer, François Thibaux offers a collection of twelve short stories that navigate between crazy fantasy and harsh realism. It’s very strong.
He lives near Soissons (02), and his publisher, the excellent Cours Ouvert, is not far away. It might seem at first glance that François Thibaux is playing the card of regionalism, or even departmentalism axonais. Point. The writer has more than one string to his bow and, fortunately, is not limited to the terroir, however superb it may be. (Isn’t Aisne the most French department?) Furthermore a novelist and translator, author of eleven novels, three collections of short stories, notably winner of the 1997 Paul-Léautaud prize, the 2000 Joseph-Delteil prize and above all , above all, the Loin du marketing 2017 prize (you can’t make this up! Who else but him could be honored with such an award? It suits him like a glove!), François Thibaux gives us to read The Angel’s Bikean opus of twelve short texts, singular, astonishing, captivating, captivating fictions, which he anchors, of course, in his beloved Picardy, but also in Sicily, in the South-West, and in the great, distant East. Some writers, although of quality, lack a universe, or, at least, are scattered. puzzle style », as Bernard Blier would have said. Thibaux digs his furrow, stubborn, stubborn, driven by the terrible determination to surprise his reader; he succeeded not without brilliance and panache.
Trotsky on keyboard
From the first story, the narrator is waiting for a piano tuner. Someone knocks at the door; it’s Leon Trotsky. Could it be the friend of the hard-hitting Ramòn Mercader who will sit at the keyboard? His double? We are in doubt. He wedges the instrument block with a biography, Life of Charles IXkeeps offering alcohol to Léon who, politely, refuses. With Trotsky gone, he ends up learning that the tuner, the real one, had a problem on the road; this added to a cell phone deprived of battery, he could not prevent; the Ducrotois establishments, specialized in piano tuning, apologize for this. Strange, right? The other short stories are in the same vein, all written in an impeccable style, limpid, precise, poetic but without affectation.
Here, during a funeral, “ the water from the sky (which) blackened the coffin » ; a little further on, a dwarf nun appears, “ waxier than a candle “. There, from a couple who don’t get along: “ (…) she was too mean for him. » Or, of a priest, in his presbytery, that he imagines “ munching on hard bread with rancid butter and sardines in oil. » We then understand that we are reading a real short story writer; a king of the brief; a high-flying sprinter.
The Angel’s BikeFrançois Thibaux; ed. Always run; 127 pp.
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