Book review : A Long Way Off - Pascal Garnier

I've just finished reading A Long Way Off, which is the final book written by French author Pascal Garnier before his death in 2010. It has been translated by Emily Boyce, who is an editor and in-house translator at Gallic Books. She has done a great job and you don't even realise that it's a translated book when you're reading it.

The central character in the novel is Marc, a sixty-year-old man who seems unsatisfied with life in general and who just wants more. More what, he's not really sure, but he packs up his cat, picks up his daughter and heads off on an adventure. 

His daughter, Anne, is from his first marriage and is a grown woman. She apparently has learning difficulties and lives in a home, but she's a bit of an unknown quantity and is difficult to predict. She apparently needs supervision but her dad gives her a lot of (too much?) independence and she frequently goes out on her own, to buy a pancake or catch up with a new friend. 

It soon becomes obvious that her little trips out appear to correspond to a series of strange murders. Could she really be the culprit? Or is it just a strange coincidence? As they continue their journey, moving down to Agen and planning on going to Spain, Marc's health starts playing up, then the police come knocking on the door of their campervan. Does he really know his daughter as well as he thinks?

The early chapters are simple enough, revealing Marc's day to day routine, personal ponderings and rough plan to go on an adventure. As he travels south and gets to know his daughter better, things start to get a little strange. After the pair come into possession of an African voodoo statue, Marc's physical health starts to suffer. Does his mental health start to deteriorate too, or do the final shocking events with his daughter really happen as they are told ? I was left with a feeling of "what happened there then ?" at the end of the book, as the ending was not at all what I expected. I can see this being a big hit at reading groups, as I'm sure everyone will have a different interpretation of what really happened.

star rating : 4/5

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Gallic Books (26 Mar. 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 191047777X
• ISBN-13: 978-1910477779

Disclosure : I received a review copy of the book.