The Strangers in the House (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

by Georges Simenon (Author), Geoffrey Sainsbury (Translator), P.D. James (Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"The greatest literary discovery I have made in recent time is Georges Simenon--his 'hard' novels, such as Dirty Snow and The Strangers in the House. So impressed was I by these books that I was determined to write one. The result is Christine Falls." --Benjamin Black (John Banville), Publishers Weekly

"Most of Simenon's novels are short, 200 pages or less, short enough to be read in one or two sittings. His style is spare but unusually potent. If you want to learn how to use adjectives - which is to say, with economy and precision - read Simenon. His skill at creating a sense of place is uncanny. When you finish The Strangers in the House, the memory of the dark and rainy streets of Moulins, the town where the story is set, stays with you palpably." —Philadelphia Inquirer

"This is not a Maigret but one of the French master's romans durs and is quite simply a masterpiece." --John Banville

“Attention should be paid to the New York Review of Books' continuing reissues of Georges Simenon. Simenon was legendary both for his literary skill–four or five books every year for 40 years–and his sexual capacity, at least to hear him tell it. What we can speak of with some certainty are the novels, which are tough, rigorously unsentimental and full of rage, duplicity and, occasionally, justice. Simenon's tone and dispassionate examination of humanity was echoed by Patricia Highsmith, who dispensed with the justice. So far, the Review has published Tropic Moon, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, Red Lights, Dirty Snow and Three Bedrooms in Manhattan; The Strangers in the House comes out in November. Try one, and you'll want to read more.” –The Palm Beach Post

'A master storyteller ... Simenon gave to the puzzle story a humanity that it had never had before'–Daily Telegraph

"The most extraordinary literary phenomenon of the twentieth century." –Julian Symons

“The romans durs are extraordinary: tough, bleak, offhandedly violent, suffused with guilt and bitterness, redolent of place (Simenon is unsurpassed as a scenesetter), utterly unsentimental, frightening in the pitilessness of their gaze, yet wonderfully entertaining. They are also more philosophically profound than any of the fiction of Camus or Sartre, and far less self-conscious. This is existentialism with a backbone of tempered steel.”–John Banville, The New Republic

"This is what attracts and holds me in him. He writes for `the vast public,' to be sure, but delicate and refined readers find something for them too as soon as they begin to take him seriously. He makes one reflect; and this is close to being the height of art; how superior he is in this to those heavy novelists who do not spare us a single commentary! Simenon sets forth a particular fact, perhaps of general interest; but he is careful not to generalize; that is up to the reader."–André Gide

“[Simenon] digs right inside his protagonists heads, in ways so specific that his characters have a forceful and very convincing individuality. He makes crime fascinating, even attractive.”–The Dominion Post (New Zealand)

Product Description
Dirty, drunk, unloved, and unloving, Hector Loursat has been a bitter recluse for eighteen long years—ever since his wife abandoned him and their newborn child to run off with another man. Once a successful lawyer, Loursat now guzzles burgundy and buries himself in books, taking little notice of his teenage daughter or the odd things going on in his vast and ever-more-dilapidated mansion. But one night the sound of a gunshot penetrates the padded walls of Loursat’s study, and he is forced to investigate. What he stumbles on is a murder.

Soon Loursat discovers that his daughter and her friends have been leading a dangerous secret life. He finds himself strangely drawn to this group of young people, and when one of them is accused of the murder, he astonishes the world by taking up the young man’s defense.

In The Strangers in the House, Georges Simenon, master chronicler of the dark side of the human heart, gives us a detective story that is also a tale of an improbable redemption.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (October 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590171942
• ISBN-13: 978-1590171943
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #305,495 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I have been a stranger in a strange land, December 21, 2006

By	Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Exodus ii. 22.

Georges Simenon was nothing if not prolific in both his literary and public life. Born in Belgium in 1903, Simenon turned out hundreds of novels. Simenon's obsession with writing caused him to break off an affair (he was prolific in this area of his life as well) with the celebrated Josephine Baker in Paris when he could only write twelve novels in the twelve month period in which they were involved. Although perhaps best known for his Inspector Maigret detective novels, Simenon also wrote over a hundred novels that he referred to as `romans durs' (literally "hard novels"). "Strangers in the House" is one of Simenon's hard novels and to call it noir is not an understatement.

Hector Loursat, an accomplished attorney, has been a stranger in his own house ever since his wife abandoned him and their newborn child eighteen years ago. Since that time Loursat's universe has shrunk to his bedroom, his library and his dining room. He barely speaks to his now 18 year old daughter or their cook. They are for all intents and purposes, strangers. He is a hermit, alone with his books and a profligate amount of burgundy and brandy. It is only the murderous presence of other strangers in his house that may stir him out of his emotional coma. That dark-setting forms the backdrop for "Strangers in the House".

Loursat is roused from his alcohol-induced sleep by what he thinks may be a gunshot. His suspicions are confirmed when he stumbles through portions of the house he hasn't seen in years and discovers a body. He soon discovers that his daughter has fallen in with something of a gang of youths who like to live on the edge. The rest of the novel finds Loursat grappling with the implications of the murder. We see Loursat struggling out of his hermetic cocoon. The reader is left to wonder, as the story progresses, whether Loursat can break out of his cocoon long enough to connect with his daughter and protect her interests through a criminal investigation and trial.

The result is wholly satisfying. I was totally drawn to the character of Loursat. Simenon does not make him particularly attractive. His word pictures of Loursat's appearance and manner are not designed to elicit great sympathy. Nevertheless, the pain Loursat has suffered (although unstated) is palpable and as the story progressed I could not help but hope that Loursat would find the strength to `set things right' both with the criminal investigation and trial and with his life. The result is surprising but it also felt just about right.

New York Review of Books should be congratulated for bringing Simenon's classic `romans durs' back into print. The paperback quality is excellent and each novel in the series is introduced by a writer of note. In this instance the marvelous P.D. James writes a brief but powerful introduction. I recommend all of Simenon's books and Strangers in the House is no exception. L. Fleisig

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For the defence, March 9, 2009

By	Roger Brunyate "reader/writer/musician" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The New York Review of Books is reissuing the "romans durs" of Georges Simenon -- his non-Maigret novels where the emphasis is more on psychology than on detection. Of the three that I have read so far -- including the magnificent TROPIC MOON -- this is the most like his detective novels. There is a crime, a mystery, and a court case, and the book ends when the true culprit is discovered. Or almost ends -- for the main focus is not on the solution of the crime, but the effect that his involvement in the case has on the defence attorney, Hector Loursat.

Maître Loursat is not an attractive figure when we first meet him. A middle-aged bear of a man, he had been abandoned by his wife many years before. Now, drinking several bottles of Burgundy a day, he lives in two rooms of a big rambling house, accompanied only by a surly cook, a shifting procession of housemaids, and his almost-adult daughter Nicole, whom he sees only at silent mealtimes. He is quite unaware that a group of Nicole's friends have been occupying the house at night -- until he is disturbed by a gunshot and finds a dying stranger in one of the beds. The events that follow shake him out of his self-pity, and he eventually finds himself defending Nicole's lover in court. Loursat will be changed by the experience -- perhaps not much, but still significantly -- and this change is the real subject of the novel.

Simenon is superb as ever in describing the small provincial town. For instance: "Hardly a window that was not shuttered. The steps of the rare passerby in the dismal streets sounded furtive, almost embarrassed." Behind those shuttered windows, dinner parties are being held by the few privileged bourgeois families, all known to one another and often connected by marriage. Nicole's friends include some of the sons of these families, escaping boredom, and some lowlier individuals just seeking to be included. The class background, like the French legal system, may seem strange to American eyes, but it is an explosive mixture, leading to jealousy and ultimately to murder. And to the rebirth of Hector Loursat.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressed, February 8, 2009

By	James Tetreault (North Grafton, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Simenon did a terrific job of describing a character's disconnection from the world around him and his gradual re-engagement with it.