Name: Too Close to the Edge
SKU: 9781910477250
Price: 8.99 GBP
Availability: InStock

Description

A widow’s quiet retirement in the foothills of the Alps is turned upside down by the arrival of a mysterious stranger.

Recently widowed grandmother Éliette is returning to her home in the mountains when her micro-car breaks down. A stranger comes to her aid on foot. Éliette offers him a lift, glad of the interruption to her humdrum routine.

That night, her neighbours’ son is killed in a road accident. Could the tragedy be linked to the arrival of her good Samaritan?

Reviews

‘Garnier plunges you into a bizarre, overheated world, seething death, writing, fictions and philosophy. He’s a trippy, sleazy, sly and classy read.’ A. L. Kennedy

‘Brilliantly handled in a black farce reminiscent of Joe Orton and the more impish films of Alfred Hitchcock and Claude Chabrol.’ The Sunday Times

‘A guaranteed grisly thriller’ ShortList Magazine

‘Classic Pascal Garnier; it’s dark, it’s nasty, full of bitter ironies.’ His Futile Preoccupations

‘The translation is excellent: the book reads easily, while the sense of France remains strong. This latter flavour, plus the observation of human behaviour at the margins of deviancy, is reminiscent of Simenon at times. Rarely has noir been so much fun.’ Crime Review

‘Here you will not finish this without having met with at least one or two surprises, and the strongest, most pleasurable flavour in your mouth provided by the author’s usual ‘je ne sais quoi’.’ The Bookbag

‘Too Close to the Edge by Pascal Garnier is a tale of retirement and calm domesticity, with a hint of menace about to explode.’ Criminal Element

‘Like George Simenon’s books, Pascal Garnier’s subversive, almost surreal tales come in slim little volumes, seldom more than 150 pages or so. But in that space he manages to say as muchm and more memorably too, than many authors of books that are too heavy to hold.’ Literary Review

‘Garnier manages to lead you little by little to dark and hopeless situations, all the more so that he deftly juxtaposes poetry with violence.’ Words and Peace

‘If you’re interested in the study of people and their unpredictable reactions to monumental upheavals in their lives, then this is an especially fine example.’ Little Bookness Lane

‘A mixture of Albert Camus and JG Ballard’ Financial Times

‘Bleak, often funny and never predictable’ The Observer

‘A brilliant exercise in grim and gripping irony, it makes you grin as well as wince.’ Sunday Telegraph

Bonus Material

Reading Group Questions for ‘Too Close to the Edge’

Emily Boyce is a translator and editor. Her translation of A Long Way Off by Pascal Garnier was runner up for the 2021 Scott Moncrieff Prize.

Meet the author

Pascal Garnier, who died in March 2010, was a talented novelist, short story writer, children’s author and painter. From his home in the mountains of the Ardèche, he wrote fiction in a noir palette with a cast of characters drawn from ordinary provincial life. Though his writing is often very dark i…

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Too Close to the Edge

A widow’s quiet retirement in the foothills of the Alps is turned upside down by the arrival of a mysterious stranger.

Description

Reviews

‘Garnier plunges you into a bizarre, overheated world, seething death, writing, fictions and philosophy. He’s a trippy, sleazy, sly and classy read.’ A. L. Kennedy

‘Brilliantly handled in a black farce reminiscent of Joe Orton and the more impish films of Alfred Hitchcock and Claude Chabrol.’ The Sunday Times

‘A guaranteed grisly thriller’ ShortList Magazine

‘Classic Pascal Garnier; it’s dark, it’s nasty, full of bitter ironies.’ His Futile Preoccupations

‘The translation is excellent: the book reads easily, while the sense of France remains strong. This latter flavour, plus the observation of human behaviour at the margins of deviancy, is reminiscent of Simenon at times. Rarely has noir been so much fun.’ Crime Review

‘Here you will not finish this without having met with at least one or two surprises, and the strongest, most pleasurable flavour in your mouth provided by the author’s usual ‘je ne sais quoi’.’ The Bookbag

‘Too Close to the Edge by Pascal Garnier is a tale of retirement and calm domesticity, with a hint of menace about to explode.’ Criminal Element

‘Like George Simenon’s books, Pascal Garnier’s subversive, almost surreal tales come in slim little volumes, seldom more than 150 pages or so. But in that space he manages to say as muchm and more memorably too, than many authors of books that are too heavy to hold.’ Literary Review

‘Garnier manages to lead you little by little to dark and hopeless situations, all the more so that he deftly juxtaposes poetry with violence.’ Words and Peace

‘If you’re interested in the study of people and their unpredictable reactions to monumental upheavals in their lives, then this is an especially fine example.’ Little Bookness Lane

‘A mixture of Albert Camus and JG Ballard’ Financial Times

‘Bleak, often funny and never predictable’ The Observer

‘A brilliant exercise in grim and gripping irony, it makes you grin as well as wince.’ Sunday Telegraph

Bonus Material

Reading Group Questions for ‘Too Close to the Edge’

Emily Boyce is a translator and editor. Her translation of A Long Way Off by Pascal Garnier was runner up for the 2021 Scott Moncrieff Prize.

Meet the author

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