America according to Joseph Incardona

In his latest novel, the Genevan dismantles America's clichés with relish. made in Hollywood. And we'd be wrong to think we'd heard enough about it already.

There's something of the Cohen brothers and Quentin Tarantino in Joseph Incardona's latest novel, Stella and America, published by Editions Finitude. This book is a kind of road movie over 3500 kilometers between Georgia and Las Vegas. In this landscape of extreme heat and dust, halfway between Pulp Fiction and No Country for Old Men, The author plays with all the clichés that cinema and literature have created about the United States over the years.

A far cry from the square-jawed, impeccably groomed superhero, Stella and America depicts a gallery of grotesque, caricatured characters, a court of miracles of ugly, mean or crippled individuals. Every cliché is present: the dreaded hitmen, twins with butchered faces worthy of the Bogdanoff brothers, a boxer who has turned bartender, an ex-Special Forces priest armed to the teeth, an old fortune-teller, a femme fatale, an ambitious immigrant journalist. A rotten cardinal.

An upside-down Virgin«

Hardly anyone emerges unscathed from this exercise in style, orchestrated with relish by Joseph Incardona. Even Stella, the young girl who is half saint and half whore, swings «between masterful bullshit and absolute generosity», according to the narrator. He portrays her as a kind of «upside-down Virgin» whose very existence «calls two thousand years of history into question». No wonder the Vatican wants to eliminate her at all costs. After all, a prostitute who heals paralytics by having sex doesn't look good; it's better to make her a martyr.

As befits a book that borrows from westerns and film noir, Joseph Incardona adds a dash of explosions, a pinch of gunfire and a few well-chosen corpses. And, far from taking a back seat to the action, he grafts in some well-intentioned commentary, philosophical reflections and even quotations from Alice Rivaz. The result is a joy to behold. The writing is sharp and jubilant, the plot outrageous and the dialogue delicious. The whole thing can be savored in no time, like a cocktail on a chaise longue by the sea.

But beyond that, the writer looks at the postcard America of Bruce Springsteen's songs, which has shaped our collective imagination for decades. It has sold us dreams thanks to its epic and legendary tales, where even bastards can become heroes. Now it's an America that's dying, «her and her flag blowing its nose at the stars», as the narrator puts it. And with it, «we too are dying a little».

Write to the author: sandrine.rovere@leregardlibre.com

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Joseph Incardona
Stella and America
Editions Finitude
January 2024
224 pages

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