What is the worst birthday gift you have ever received? Slippers in summer, a video game without the console, or perhaps an exercise bike? That is exactly what Émilien Borie gets. He is the hero of Alaska, the formidable and uproariously funny new novel by Fabrice Caro, published by Gallimard on Thursday, October 1.
Unlike Figurec, Le Discours, or several other works by the 53-year-old writer — who has also recently made a name for himself scripting the latest installments of Asterix and his band of Gauls — do not look to the title for clues. The story does not unfold in the United States, nor in the mountains or a forest.
A Mediocre Novelist in Crisis
The setting is France, where Émilien Borie, a novelist in his fifties — prolific, certainly, but hardly a star — has just published a new book. Far from being his best work, it has been savaged by a radio critic who was not exactly gentle, declaring its author nothing short of “a plodding little man” on air.
A tough blow for our hero, a bumbling soul still recovering from three months of rehabilitation surrounded by octogenarians after a nasty fall — while stationary — from his motorcycle. And his wife has left him, too. Poor Émilien. Everything is slipping through his fingers, including the exercise bike planted in the middle of his living room, a gift from his daughters.
A Photo That Changes Everything
One day, a man crosses his path. It is Yann Garnier, a former classmate whose only memory of him is an image of him masturbating in a corridor of the school library. Quick, let us take a photo, Garnier asks. For once someone recognizes him, Émilien is delighted. He poses, all smiles, thumb up. The snapshot lands on Facebook.
And then comes the disaster. “It would appear that this Yann Garnier is rather close to certain neo-Nazi circles,” the hero’s publisher informs him. Social media erupts. His contacts turn their backs on him. The media follow suit. Is Émilien Borie the latest victim of “cancel culture”? Yes — and it is very funny.
Avoiding the Conservative Trap
The gamble was far from guaranteed. For several years now, when the subject is tackled in literature, cinema, or television, it has often tended to reveal a streak of conservatism — an unspoken critique of free speech or of “wokeness” on the part of its creator, as seen in films like Fjord or Agnès Jaoui’s latest comedy.
Fabrice Caro avoids the trap here. Told from the perspective of his hero, the book never condemns the movement. It is the failed writer who is ridiculed, not the opposing camp. The accumulation of blunders and missteps is a delight. Readers laugh at his discomfort in the face of a situation absurd in its proportions, and at his own sense of dispossession.
Proof Nowhere, Suspicion Everywhere
Why did he allow himself to get entangled in this? Why did he not deny it sooner? Behind the humor, the novel’s brilliance lies in its ability to illuminate certain blind spots of the debate without moralizing — including the runaway momentum of public opinion and the ways a celebrity’s silence is interpreted when things go wrong.
The message also applies to the media, which close their doors to the poor writer one after another. It is a symbolic coincidence that the novel appears less than a week after the case of Thélyson Orélien, whose promotional tour in Canada and France was abruptly interrupted.
Have we entered the era of suspicion? In Alaska, not quite. There exists a world where Émilien’s truth is never shaken: among his own. It is reassuring.
Alaska by Fabrice Caro is available in bookstores as of Thursday, October 1, published by Gallimard.
