Book review : Wild Dog - Serge Joncour

Wild Dog is a new release from Gallic Press, written in French by Serge Joncour and translated by Jane Aitken and Polly Makintosh - they get a special mention as they have done such a fantastic job. You actually forget, when reading, that this is a translation, as it flows so beautifully. You're probably not familiar with the name Serge Joncour - I certainly wasn't anyway - but, even if this is his first work to be translated into English, he has published fifteen novels and collections of short stories, winning several awards along the way. Wild Dog won the Prix Landerneau des Lecteurs and the Prix du Roman d'Ecologie in 2018. That's not his only talent though, as he is also a screenwriter, having written most notably the screenplay for Sarah's Key, which starred Kristin Scott Thomas and was released in 2011, becoming the most successful foreign film of the year in the US.

Wild Dog tells the story - or two stories, in fact, separated by just over a hundred years - of a secluded house, perched high up on a hill in the Lot region of France. Parisian couple Franck and Lise have rented it for their three week summer break. While Lise, in search of peace and serenity after recently recovering from cancer, loves the fact that they are so cut off from civilisation, Franck is desperately worried to see that he has no internet or phone connection. How will he keep in touch with his treacherous work colleagues, who are probably getting up to all sorts of sneaky deals in his absence?

In alternate chapters, we catch up with the history of this sleepy village, back at the outbreak of the First World War. As the men are called away to fight, the women take over in the fields, not having any idea of when things will go back to normal. A German lion-tamer, who up until the outbreak of war had been travelling with a circus, needs a place to hide out with his animals, and he ends up living in the house at the top of the hill. The villagers can hear the lions' fearsome roars and, when several of the villagers' sheep, hidden up in the hills, begin to disappear, they fear that he is killing them to feed his lions.

Back in modern times, when Lise and Franck begin hiking in the hills, exploring their lush surroundings, they come across an enormous cage, hidden in the valley. This is obviously a relic of the lion-tamer's story. But Franck also decides that it could help him out of his current situation at work ...

It's an enjoyable read on two levels. The look back at the past is interesting, watching the inhabitants of the village head into war, having no idea of what will happen. The village is far from the front lines so, although the menace of war is always in their minds, they are more worried about day-to-day issues, such as farming and looking after the children, or even giving in to the petty jealousies that  can cause so many problems. Franck and Lise's story offers a modern viewpoint, with Franck, in particular, finding it hard to unwind. The arrival of a wild dog helps draw him into the surrounding countryside and he seems to draw on his new friend's courage and aggressiveness, taking control of his problems in a surprising way. In both stories, the lushness and opulence of the valleys between the hills, filled with animal noises that suggest that a whole different world exists just out of view, bring the two time periods together.

Definitely well worth a read !

star rating : 4.5/5

RRP : £10.99

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Gallic Books (2 April 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1910477796
• ISBN-13: 978-1910477793
• Product Dimensions: 14 x 2.5 x 21.6 cm

Disclosure : I received a review copy of the book.