«Bed Bug», a lot of insects for a little suspense

Tuesday's books - Lauriane Pipoz

Katherine Pancol's latest book has just been published by Editions Albin Michel. With Bed Bug his eighteenth book. The style is pleasant, despite a feeling of déjà-vu and a weak red thread.

Bed Bug is the story of a biologist who is passionate about insects and has a troubled past. Traveling between Paris and New York, Rose searches for love and a vaccine against cancer. From the very beginning, the reader is confronted with this dual narrative: work and family, the lab and a tyrannical mother, insects, and sex. While intertwining storylines are a common trope in Pancol’s work, here they revolve around a single character, which at times makes the narrative feel somewhat disjointed. In the protagonist’s mind, everything gets mixed up.

The idea is understandable: unable to manage her personal life, Rose systematically takes refuge in her work. As a result, we are presented with descriptions of insect reproduction patterns at moments when we’re waiting for action. These interludes are very well researched. Katherine Pancol consulted a biologist specializing in medicinal insects. But while some of this information holds our attention for a while and sheds light on the character’s state of mind, it distracts us from the main narrative, which is often slightly frustrating.

A pleasant sense of familiarity

This lack of a central theme is almost a trademark of the author: it was delightful in some of her previous books, such as Scarlett, if possible (1997), so captivating, or The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles (2006), a true literary phenomenon. Despite its somewhat flimsy plot, Pancol’s writing is unmistakable—his style and his unique way of unfolding events. If the magic didn’t quite work in his latest book, it’s certainly either due to the subject matter of biology—which won’t captivate everyone to the same degree—or to the character himself, who is less endearing when he isn’t downright annoying.

Also, in many of her other books, numerous characters appear together, making it essential to sketch a general portrait of each one in order to identify them. Even though these many personalities remain surprising, they thus exhibit a certain consistency. In her latest book, unfortunately, the opposite is true: Rose speaks to us, but the reader can’t quite figure her out. Granted, the idea is that she’s been too broken to know what she wants, but we’d like her to figure it out sooner.

We’ll prefer to remember the rediscovery of the theme of the cruel man—treated somewhat differently in this work but still characteristic of the author’s unique brand of feminism—or original ideas such as that of the Russian nesting dolls, which brings a great deal of poetry to the story and gives us food for thought. Above all, this element reminds us of the whirlwind of freshness found in Pancol’s previous works.

Write to the author: [email protected]

Photo credit: Wikimedia CC 3.0

Katherine Pancol
Bed Bug
Albin Michel
2019
351 pages

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