Is it just me, or are novels getting stranger and stranger? There seems to be an upsurge of plots in which people relive their own lives -- not exactly reincarnation, but certainly somehow related. Last year there was Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which I loved, and I’ve just reviewed Claire North’s The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August for the second issue of Shiny New Books, coming out at the beginning of July. And now we have Replay, which comes with an intriguing blurb:
Ever since he was murdered, life has not been the same for Andrew Stilman.
Set in New York, this is the story of Andrew, who is an investigative reporter for the New York Times. Early on the morning of 9 July 2012, he goes out for his usual run along the banks of Hudson River Park. He’s not aware that someone is following him until he feels a sharp pain in his lower back and collapses immediately, realising that he is dying. But then something incredible happens:
Freezing cold air rushed into his lungs, and an equally icy liquid was flowing through his veins. A blindng light was making it impossible to open his eyes. He was terrified of what he would see if he did open them. Where was he waking up, purgatory or hell? Heaven was probably too good for him, after the way he’d treated Valerie. He could not longer feel his heart beating. And he was cold, terribly cold. Death was supposed to last for eternity and he couldn’t stay in the dark the whole time. He plucked up courage and managed to reopen his eyes. To his amazement he found himself leaning up against the traffic light on the corner of Charles Street and the West Side Highway.
Bizarrely, he soon discovers that it is 7 May 2012, exactly two months before his murder. So he now has sixty days to find out who it was that murdered him, and why.
This is certainly a clever idea, though of course it demands a large chunk of suspension of disbelief. Andrew is not sure if his murder was a result of a story he recently published about illegal adoptions by Americans of stolen Chinese children, or a forthcoming article on war-criminals and atrocities in Argentina. Or could it perhaps have had something to do with his rather complicated personal life?
Marc Levy is France’s best selling novelist. His fifteen novels have been translated into nearly fifty languages and have sold over thirty million copies worldwide. I’m sorry to say I haven’t read any of them, so I can’t judge how this one compares. It’s undoubtedly sharp, slick, topical, and inventive, but I have to say I didn’t warm to Andrew Stilman, whose personal life leaves a great deal to be desired. Of course that need not be a problem, and indeed is often an added bonus, but given Andrew’s apparently sincere desire to be reunited with his beloved Valerie, his blithe habit of leaping into bed with other women without giving it a second thought seemed a little unhelpful, especially as he didn’t appear to notice the discrepancy, and I rather felt the author liked him all the better for it.
But full marks to Levy for what is probably the first instance of a victim investigating his own murder, and as the ending is a complete cliffhanger, I imagine many readers will be longing for the follow-up novel to be translated. And full marks to Europa Editions, who are publishing some great literature in translation, and thanks to them for sending it to me!
