Francis Rissin - Martin Mongin

"Sometimes all it takes is speaking the name of something to give it form and invite it directly into the real world."

Look, finding a novel that completely breaks from the usual publishing sludge is rare. If you're running from the self-indulgent memoir trend, the disaster-porn biographical fiction, or those opportunistic social comedies everyone's churning out—grab this. Francis Rissin will knock you sideways. Who is Francis Rissin? Where did he come from? What does he want? That's what these eleven interconnected texts set out to explore.

Think of it as a novel in detached pieces. Each chapter questions everything that came before it. It starts with a dizzying text about hunting down an impossible, mysterious book—Pour une approche de Francis Rissin—a book that refuses to be found, as elusive as its author. Even the rare readers who claim to have read it seem to evaporate. Then that same name "Francis Rissin" starts appearing on campaign posters across small French towns. More and more posters. More insistent. The name spreads through provincial France, and its relentless presence has consequences. Or doesn't.

"France was fumbling in the dark, navigating through shadows, eyes blind, wandering across the surface of the abyss. And then God had the bright idea of turning on the light."

This all unfolds in a France that's not doing well. Anger and frustration everywhere. Strikes, riots, drugs, extremism—the whole mess. France dreams of that providential savior who'll pull them out of the swamp. A Vercingetorix, a Bonaparte, maybe a De Gaulle. A quasi-divine figure the author mocks brilliantly, alternating between Christ-like and demonic. Could Francis Rissin—unique yet plural, omnipresent yet impossible to pin down—be that improbable, fantasized hero? Mongin circles this question while taking us on a tour of the whole damn country. And that's one of this book's real pleasures: visiting these magnificent landscapes from Normandy to Haute Savoie, from the Somme to the Var, through an incredible collection of small towns that smell like deep France.

Construction

This novel is inventive and disorienting. You keep wondering where it's taking you. As mesmerizing and hypnotic as a Picasso cubist painting. As labyrinthine and strange as a Borges story. As enigmatic and symbolic as a biblical parable. Mongin jumps playfully across fiction's infinite possibilities and the mysteries of literary creation—like Antoine Bello at his most mischievous—while working through multiple forms: university lectures, journals, biographies, investigation reports, testimonies, exhibition catalogs, confessions. Multiple genres too: detective fiction, fantasy, coming-of-age, political novel, epic. He drops breadcrumbs from one text to the next, giving us a story that's both multiple and fragmentary.

"Higher up, somewhere safe, someone was responsible for developing a plan, articulating ends and means. Higher up, someone possessed the overall logic."

This is exactly the kind of novel I live for. If you're not afraid to make your neurons crackle, don't miss this brilliant debut.

Thanks to Nicole for making me want to read this.