Emmanuel Carrère - "The Moustache" and other stuff

The main thing I remember about the two is from "Class Trip" -- when the boy is taken to buy clothes by the young ski instructor, and is completely charmed and wowed by this nice young man with his cluttered car and his rock cassettes. I'd never before seen anyone write or talk about this dynamic, even though it felt instantly familiar and important -- whatever moment it is where we become aware of interesting young people, more or less, people who are independent but not adults.

Carrère's The Adversary was very enjoyable: true crime!

He also wrot a Philip K. Dick bio, I believe.

And yes, he never finished med school but pretended to his family that he had, for years and years, with Tragic Results when they found out. It was the basis for the less-dark movie Time Out (not, as commonly believed, based on the magazine). Carrère interviewed the guy in prison extensively -- as in the Dick book, Carrère brings himself into the nonfiction quite effectively.

I'm reviving this thread after seeing a Class trip and Moustache mention in the "books that make you feel trapped" thread. And also because I really really like this guy's books.

His last three have all been amazing but are really different from Moustache and Class Trip (which I really like too). The Adversary, Un Roman Russe and D'autres vies que la mienne (sorry, don't know if those last two were translated to English, so don't know their titles in said language) are all very autobiographical too. I don't really know what you could call those books because they are not novels since they talk about actual events that took place and he shares a lot about his feelings and thoughts. Un Roman Russe is really all about him.

The last one (D'autres vies que la mienne) is amazing, probably the book I most enjoyed last year. Those three books are also fascinating inasmuch as they show the way Carrere has changed over the course of the past few years. The jump from Roman Russe to D'autres vies que la mienne shows just how much he has gotten to grips with his own problems. I'm not really making much sense I fear, especially if you haven't read the books I'm talking about, but honestly if these books have been translated to english, I'd recommend you read seeing as they are fantastic. And also, read them in the order they were published, just to see for yourself how Carrere changed over time.

Also, I'll just reply to the last message, The Adversary is not based heavily on a true case, it IS a true case. Carrère spends the whole book talking about the event, trying to figure out how the guy could have spent his life (something like 10-15 years iirc) lying to everybody and just not doing anything. He contacted Romand (the "doctor" who the book is about) and exchanged letters with him to try and make more sense of those events. A great book and a really sad story.

Man, I Loved Class Trip and The Adversary so much, why have I not read more by this guy? I will seek more out NOW!

xpost Carrere fictionalized portions of I Am Alive and You Are Dead - some would call it a phildickian exercise? I thought I might've read that he did something similar with The Adversary.

Those are the only works of his I've heard of - Class Trip, The Moustache, IAAAYAD and The Adversary. Are there more that are translated into English? Any that are upcoming?

From what I know of the case, he stays pretty close to the facts, with the caveat that I read The Adversary a long time ago so don't remember it perfectly. Actually thinking about it, he stays pretty close to the facts wrt the killing of family members but he may indeed have fictionalised a bit the parts where he evokes Romand's youth and all that. Maybe I should read it again.

The Adversary is true crime, not a novelisation or fictionalisation of the case or anything. He interviews Romand's friends, neighbours etc. I've read that and Classe de neige, they were both great. I must look into his later books.

Yeah, I know that the crime part of the book is true to the facts. What I'm not sure about is all that part where Carrère tries to explain Romand's motivation for living his life of deceit, his youth etc - was that based solely on his letters exchanged with Romand and interviews witrh Romand's friends or did he just try to create a plausible scenario. Anyways, that's just a minor thing, you should definitely check out his later books, they really are amazing.

Anyone read his Limonov bio/novel?

yep, i did. it wasn't as good as his previous books is what i took from it. i can't remember too much about it except that limonov led an insane life, that carrère is definitely very impressed by him and glad to have met him. it's written like his previous books, adding tons of details about his own life & issues & how they happen to mesh with his writing but it really felt like a lesser book compared to L'adversaire or D'autres vies que la mienne.