THE PASSION OF MARTIN FISSEL-BRANDT

Several unusual and mysterious occurrences either do or do not take place in this engaging 1999 jeu, the ninth novel (and first in English translation) by a critically esteemed member of the generation of minimalistes that also includes Annie Ernaux and Marie Redonnet. Whether the eponymous Martin actually murders his wife, participates in a revolution in a remote Asian country, and survives terrorist violence to live happily in sin with his mistress Anna, or only imagines these extremities, matters much less than Gailly’s mastery of outrageous coincidence and brisk short sentences arranged in meticulous melodious patterns, not to mention his habit of chatting amiably with the reader about the difficulty of sustaining a coherent narrative. This attractive volume is further graced by both Kemp’s fluid, artful English translation and writer-critic Brian Evenson’s fine introduction (where he says some unfashionably sensible things about minimalism and metafiction). An excellent introduction to a very entertaining writer.