Inspired by a Richard Brautigan short story, the librarian of the small town of Crozon in Brittany creates a sanctuary for manuscripts that have been rejected for publication. Years later, a young Parisian editor visiting her parents discovers this secret library and stumbles across a brilliant manuscript: The Last Hours of a Love Affair by Henri Pick, a now-deceased local pizza chef. But could a humble pizza chef have secretly been a genius novelist? As the novel becomes a surprise bestseller in France, more people begin to look into the mystery of Henri Pick to find out.
I read David Foenkinos’ novel Delicacy years ago and it’s a credit to his talent that he managed to enthral me - a guy who’s hardly read any romance novels and basically ignores that genre entirely - with his love story. So I was hoping for a similar experience with his latest, The Mystery of Henri Pick - and was unfortunately let down.
The premise is intriguing if you’re the bookish sort - which I am - and parts of it were interesting. Like the editor, Delphine, discovering the manuscript, how she met her authorial boyfriend Frederic, the occasional revelations about the people associated with the novel, and the growing public reaction to its publication.
But that’s just a small part of the novel - most of it is taken up with soap opera-esque digressions that are irrelevant to the overall story. Like Pick’s middle-aged daughter Josephine rekindling her romance with her ex Marc; Magali, the overweight, older librarian having an unlikely affair with a twentysomething Kurt Cobain-lookalike (that’s literally how he’s described!); and the journalist, Rouche, mooning over his dwindling literary fame. If that stuff was interesting, I would be more forgiving, but it isn’t.
Foenkinos also goes for one twist too many at the end. All that last twist does is underline how pointless it was to focus so much on certain characters’ stories if none of it had any bearing on anything.
Despite the occasional charming element, I was mostly bored with the rambling, often repetitive, and increasingly uninteresting narrative. The Mystery of Henri Pick was a disappointing read - I’d recommend checking out Delicacy instead for a better David Foenkinos novel.
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