There are always authors who, even in life, inexplicably, did not finish taking the well-deserved leap for all their bibliography beyond their borders. And with the passage of time the most unusual circumstances make the whole of his work reach greater diffusion.
Perhaps it is a matter of the current splendor of the French noir in authors like Franck thilliez o Bernard minier. The point is that so many novels by the also French writer Frédéric Dard, who died already in 2000, seem to have awakened from that dusty dream accumulated by books. Or at least that can happen in light of the rescue of this novel "The forklift."
The truth is that we are facing a claustrophobic novel in which the need for resolution, and therefore the reading tension, seems like an almost existentialist breath of fresh air. We quickly discover those details that anticipate a story as magnetic as it is claustrophobic. The unfortunate Albert Herbin falls into a maddening trap, like that of the animal surprised and locked up for the contemplation of its captor.
Nothing better than a good bait for such an end. Christmas Eve passes and Albert, recently recovered for civil life after his last stint in prison, longs for that encounter with a soul mate that will relieve his anguished existential weight in a life always oriented to failure. And this is how the connection with that lonely woman is produced which electrical union.
The conversation soon leads the two strangers to think that they can share a lap in which to drown sorrows. Only that she does not confess everything and as soon as he arrives home, invited by his new friend, Albert will discover the awakening of his instinct of imminent danger. Reason sometimes insists on overcoming the natural feelings of risk that human beings are still capable of treasuring. And maybe Albert could have escaped the trap ...
But now it is too late and he has no choice but to find a way out before succumbing to madness or even death.
You can now buy the novel El montacargas, a great reference to the awakening of the black and suspense genre, here: