Samira Sedira

In an author’s note at the end of her book, Samira Sedira tells us that People Like Them (originally published in French as Des Gens comme Eux) is inspired by an event of “true crime” – a homicide committed in 2003 in a village in France’s Haute-Savoie region, in which a man killed a family of five. Sedira observes that a point which the media had not picked up was that the father of the massacred family was black and that the murder was committed in an area totally unused to so-called “foreigners” – even those born and bred in France. Sedira’s novel is an exploration of the factors which may have led to the murder, including the explosive mix of casual racism and class discontent. To this end, she weaves elements from the real-life murder into a fictional account narrated by the murderer’s wife Anna Guillot.

At under 200 pages, People Like Them is a quick read, but it is hard-hitting and thought-provoking even while delivering the excitement of a thriller (credit for this also goes to Lara Vergnaud, whose translation feels entirely fluid and authentic) . The novel is particularly effective because, being told from the perspective of Anna, it presents a nuanced portrait of Anna’s husband Constant Guillot. The narrative does not try to whitewash the victims, especially the charismatic but scheming Bakary and his wife Sylvia who is portrayed as a classist snob. Indeed, at some points we’re drawn into sympathizing with Constant. And that’s precisely where the genius of the novel lies. I am a middle-aged white reader who thinks of himself as open and tolerant, but these moments of sympathy with Constant and his lot immediately raised an uncomfortable and guilty reflection. Was I rooting for a mass murderer? Am I tainted by unconscious racism? Worse still, could I have ever acted like Constant were I placed in his position?

Sedira herself spells out this point in her conclusion: Criminals – even murderers – serve as mirror images; they reflect our own fallibility. Viewing them as monstrous aberrations prevents us from understanding human nature. There’s no such thing as monsters. Only humans.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2021/05/people-like-them-by-samira-sedira.htm...… (altro)

Translated from French, this is a gripping and intense read. It made me realise how often I skip words and phrases as I assume I know what the author is saying but in this novel every word counted and I had to digest every single one. It is only 171 pages long. Written fro the point of view of Anna, the reader is taken to a mountain village in France where everyone knows each other. A new family appear and have a chalet built and form friendships but there are tensions that surface. The novel intersperses court room scenes with flashbacks to life in the village and the horrific events. A tense and well written novel.… (altro)

This novella by a French-Algerian writer was inspired by a 2003 murder case in France.

The narrator is Anna Guillot whose husband Constant is on trial for brutally killing Bakary and Sylvia Langlois and their three children. There is no doubt of this guilt because he describes the murders in gory detail. What is not clear is his motivation. Why would a man whom everyone describes as normal kill five people? Throughout the story, Anna addresses her husband directly.

The setting is Carmac, a small, isolated, seemingly idyllic village. The order of the village is disrupted when the Langlois family moves in because Bakary is Black when “we’d never had any Black people in Carmac.” He is also wealthy and sophisticated and this confuses some inhabitants: “In their minds . . . a Black man couldn’t be the head of a company. The Black man worked for the white man, not the reverse.” The townspeople have difficulty accepting differences. German tourists, for example, are mocked. Anna explains, “Here, we laughed openly at Germans, because it was allowed – the war gave us that right. Same for the Dutch and the Belgians. We basically viewed them as an extension of the Germans.” This theme of difference, as suggested by the title, is central. Even though the Langlois family welcomes villagers into their home, there is always an undercurrent of jealousy and mistrust.

Constant is developed as a round character with hopes and dreams, and strengths and weaknesses. Anna describes his early years when he is a promising pole-vaulter. An accident ends his dreams: “you had never pictured your life without sports, which made reframing your future more complicated than you had imagined.” Constant is able to begin anew but Anna realizes “something inside you had broken. Something that you had eventually put back together but whose delicate equilibrium risked giving way at any moment.” He and Bakary become friends but their friendship sours for a number of reasons, and Constant feels angry and humiliated. His pride is injured by what he sees as acts of condescension.

Is Constant motivated by his injured pride and his feeling that he has lost everything? Would he have reacted differently if Bakary were White? Though he claims “It’s got nothing to do with racism, they’re words, they’re just words,” Constant did call Bakary “’the Darkie,’ ‘the African upstart,’ and even ‘the ape swimming in cash.’” He admits, “I couldn’t stand to be scammed by someone not from this country.” And to wash off the blood of the victims from his hands, he goes to a frozen river because “’My blood mixed with their blood. I couldn’t handle it.’”

Providing the perspective of the murderer’s partner is useful. Anna describes her situation: “A murderer’s wife is reproached for everything: her composure when she should show more compassion; her hysteria when she should demonstrate restraint; her presence when she should disappear; her absence when she should have the decency to be here; and so on. The woman who one day becomes ‘the murderer’s wife’ shoulders a responsibility almost more damning than that of the murderer himself, because she wasn’t able to detect in time the vile beast slumbering inside her spouse. She lacked perceptiveness. And that’s what will bring about her fall from grace – her despicable lack of perceptiveness.”

The author’s message, as stated in the “Author’s Note” is that “There’s no such thing as monsters. Only humans.” Anna comments that, though she doesn’t understand how her husband came to murder five people, she does understand that “no one around you was innocent. We stood back and let it happen. Like a chain reaction, each of us contributed to an outcome. A horrific act. A tragedy. Our tragedy.” Bakary contributes to the sequence of events through his shady financial scheme. And Anna, for example, doesn’t react when she hears Constant call Bakary a “Fucking ape.”

In fact, the word silence appears 28 times in the novel. To me, that repetition suggests that when we do not speak up, we acquiesce; what we walk past is what we tolerate. Constant doesn’t object to his parents’ disapproval of Anna: “The unfairness with which I was treated was doubly painful since you never objected in the slightest to the unspoken threats your parents allowed to linger in the air between one silence and the next.” No one objects to the foul language of the young men in the bar so the silence allows their conversation to continue “naturally.”

This is a short, quick read but it is very thought-provoking. Did racism play an insidious role in the murders? Are we all capable of murder? If “’One can be more criminal than one knows,’” are there lessons that we all need to learn about acceptance, forgiveness, and not remaining silent?

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).… (altro)

In an author’s note at the end of her book, Samira Sedira tells us that People Like Them (originally published in French as Des Gens comme Eux) is inspired by an event of “true crime” – a homicide committed in 2003 in a village in France’s Haute-Savoie region, in which a man killed a family of five. Sedira observes that a point which the media had not picked up was that the father of the massacred family was black and that the murder was committed in an area totally unused to so-called “foreigners” – even those born and bred in France. Sedira’s novel is an exploration of the factors which may have led to the murder, including the explosive mix of casual racism and class discontent. To this end, she weaves elements from the real-life murder into a fictional account narrated by the murderer’s wife Anna Guillot.

At under 200 pages, People Like Them is a quick read, but it is hard-hitting and thought-provoking even while delivering the excitement of a thriller (credit for this also goes to Lara Vergnaud, whose translation feels entirely fluid and authentic) . The novel is particularly effective because, being told from the perspective of Anna, it presents a nuanced portrait of Anna’s husband Constant Guillot. The narrative does not try to whitewash the victims, especially the charismatic but scheming Bakary and his wife Sylvia who is portrayed as a classist snob. Indeed, at some points we’re drawn into sympathizing with Constant. And that’s precisely where the genius of the novel lies. I am a middle-aged white reader who thinks of himself as open and tolerant, but these moments of sympathy with Constant and his lot immediately raised an uncomfortable and guilty reflection. Was I rooting for a mass murderer? Am I tainted by unconscious racism? Worse still, could I have ever acted like Constant were I placed in his position?

Sedira herself spells out this point in her conclusion: Criminals – even murderers – serve as mirror images; they reflect our own fallibility. Viewing them as monstrous aberrations prevents us from understanding human nature. There’s no such thing as monsters. Only humans.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2021/05/people-like-them-by-samira-sedira.htm...… (altro)