We find the same characters, this time in 1959, and the whole novel takes place over one month. The novel can be read with pleasure even by those who are not familiar with the previous one.
If Pierre Lemaitre dives into the “Thirty Glorious Years”don't count on him to sing the merits of this era. He reveals the hypocrisy, the harshness, the fear of the Cold War, the shenanigans, based on real facts treated with the freedom of the novelist.
In 1959, the Pelletier parents, Louis and Angèle, sold their soap factory in Beirut and lived in France in a property in the countryside, dreaming of ending their days as happy patriarchs.
Pierre Lemaitre, jubilant in the continuation of his saga
The three children still live in Paris. The eldest, Jean, also remains tormented by not having succeeded in pleasing his father who saw him succeed him at the soap factory. Nicknamed “Bouboule”, he fails everything and seems to take revenge for his failures by killing women at random, and one more in this new novel. But he was never caught. Against all expectations, the large inexpensive clothing store he launched is doing well and he is thinking of franchising his stores.
His wife, Geneviève, is an indescribable character in a novel, a “emmerdeuse“, a villain and an idiot who gets involved in everything and constantly complains. We see her here subjugated by the astrology that she constantly invokes.
Nine lights up the book
The brother, François, senior reporter at Evening newspaper (inspired by France Evening) is editor-in-chief of a then-innovative television show, Special edition (decal of 5 columns on the front page). He becomes the main character in this novel, as well as his wife, Nine, a pretty girl but almost deaf. The character of Nine illuminates this novel, like the love that unites him and François.
The younger sister, Hélène, inaugurates a new type of radio show, at night, where each listener can come and tell their story.
In A bright futureparticular care is taken to tell the links within this family tribe.
Peaceful coexistence is bullshit. The reality is nuclear, Mr. Pelletier.
This time we discover the grandchildren of Jean and Geneviève, Philippe and Colette, totally traumatized by their cantankerous and inadequate mother. Pierre Lemaitre evokes Colette's misfortunes, including the victim of sexual violence… We know he is keen on allusions to literature. Colette, whose fate touches us so much, recalls the first name of Cosette, the unfortunate heroine of Misérables by Victor Hugo, figure of persecuted innocence.
If in the two previous novels, Pierre Lemaitre paid homage to the adventure novel, then to the social novel, this time, he dives into the great spy novel, like, he says, the novels of John Le Carré . His character of Georges Chastenet, head of Intelligence, is inspired by Le Carré's George Smiley.
-Pierre Lemaitre, enjoyable novelist of our History
François is involved in a vast espionage operation in Czechoslovakia and the exfiltration of a spy. He does this through a patriotic ideal that Pierre Lemaitre questions: to what extent can one risk one's life and the future of one's loved ones for this ideal?
Cold war
François' crazy adventure takes us to the Prague of the Cold War and the balance of terror. Spies risk the worst torture. The reader is carried away by the hazards of this mission and trembles with fear for Francis. We won't say more so as not to spoil your reading.
Pierre Lemaitre addresses, as in his previous novels, the societal themes of the time: the developments of radio and television, the sexual abuse of minors and the dangers of nuclear power which then become apparent but hidden by the States: the radioactive contaminations in Russia in Kychtym and in Great Britain at the Windscale power plant.
A great “romanesque” novel as one would say of those of Dumas, Hugo or Zola, Pierre Lemaitre learned his lessons in detective novels and knows how to put together a story with adventure, humor, ambiguous characters like the is life, with a beautiful quality of writing but also a very critical view of our societies, the secret side of which he reveals.
The novel ends with sentences already announcing the following volume: “For the moment, we gorged ourselves on profits, more or less legal, we drove faster, we washed whiter, everything was sold, everything was bought. But nothing would go unpunished. The years to come would demand accountability from those who had lived without counting and without fear of tomorrow.”
Looking forward to it sfollowing the next Pierre Lemaitre.
⇒ A bright future | Novel | Pierre Lemaitre | Calmann-Lévy, 586 pp. €23.90, digital €17
EXTRACT
“Intelligence – in other words espionage – is a court where all kinds of alliances are formed and undone which are linked to the needs of the service, territorial conflicts, personal interests, to the superior motives and narcissism of each person. It all has something to do with reason of state.
