How’s the Pain? by Pascal Garnier: book review

How’s the Pain? (2006, this edition 2012) is set in France, near Lyon.

Simon Marechall, aged 60-ish, has a vermin extermination business. He needs a driver to take him to the coast for two days, and hires 22-year-old unemployed Bernard Ferrand, who looks after his mother.

Bernard is the type of person who cares for anyone needing assistance, even if they don’t know that they do. He is innately kind and caring. He doesn’t know that Simon is dying, but he senses that he is unwell, and is worried about him.

Simon was ‘full of rage’ and quite disagreeable. Bernard soon realises that Simon’s job is not only vermin extermination, but something else. ‘Simon could not help but admire Bernard’s ability to adapt to the most bizarre situations. That great twerp had a born gift for resilience.’

Bernard likes Simon – Simon ‘had treated him like a man, like a son almost.’ But Bernard meets Fiona, and feels guilty that he is neglecting Simon.

Simon is in pain. A lot of pain.

This novella is about death, in the tradition of French noir. And in the tradition of road trips. Sparsely written, it is also a masterful study of human naïveté and frailty.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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