Underground Time

September 19, 2011
De Vigan (No and Me) pursues two doomed characters in their Parisian isolation with her second novel, but treats them with more coldness than empathy. When a clairvoyant predicts that her life will change “on the twentieth of May,” Mathilde, once her boss’s right-hand woman, is steadily relieved of her responsibilities and ostracized at work after having what she thought was a polite disagreement in a business meeting. While Mathilde desperately hopes for an explanation for this banishment, she stubbornly clings to the job that supports her and her three children. Meanwhile, young EMT Thibault contemplates the emptiness of his life as he drives his emergency medical rounds. Thibault separated from his latest girlfriend because he felt no connection to her and left a thriving country practice (losing his dream of becoming a surgeon), but now questions why he wanted to come to Paris in the first place. De Vigan moves these two lost souls around their métro, boulot, dodo days, from arrondissements to numbing office corridors, as they lose themselves further and further in moody self-reflection, a tenor that de Vigan holds but doesn’t escalate, until a vague conclusion confirms that her characters are more philosophical construct than flesh and blood.

November 1, 2011
A prizewinner and bestseller in France, de Vigan (No and Me, 2010, etc.) is a master of the spare (and of despair) in this brief novel about two unhappy Parisians who may or may not be destined to meet. The novel takes place during a single day, May 20, when a psychic has told widowed mother of three Mathilde that she will meet a man. Although her corporate job has become a nightmare since her supervisor Jacques turned against her months earlier after she mildly disagreed with him in front of others, Mathilde starts the day excited that something new is going to happen. She even laughs with her children, a moment that becomes more poignant in memory as her day falls apart. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Paris, Thibault, who has given up a safe suburban GP practice to be a traveling emergency doctor (his job does not quite translate in the U.S.), starts the day by breaking up with his unloving girlfriend, then makes his medical service calls in a mood that swings between rage and despair. When a woman falls at the metro station Mathilde helps her. Thibault is called but arrives just after Mathilde has left. Late getting to work, Mathilde discovers Jacques has moved her out of her office into a humiliating spot near the men's room and has stripped her of all of her responsibilities. She and Jacques both know she cannot be fired, but he continues to ratchet up his campaign to make her work life increasingly miserable to the point of unbearable. As Mathilde wanders through the Kafkaesque corporate labyrinth, trying to find an escape from Jacque's reach, Thibault drives the city streets overwhelmed by an exhausting caseload of patients whose lives have shriveled into hopelessness. Will these two ever meet? You'll have to read the book to find out. This is ultimately a corporate horror story--often claustrophobic to the point of oppressive, but undeniably disturbing.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 15, 2011

Vigan's recent No et Moi (No and Me) was a multiaward winner in France that sold 100,000 copies and was marketed here to raves as a children's book, though it had crossover appeal elsewhere. Her current novel, shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt, which is no petits pommes de terre, concerns two lonely people in the big city: Mathilde, miserable after her mean boss gets it in for her, and paramedic Thibault. Do they connect? Vigan should manage that with delicacy and some emotion. Definitely try this.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2011
Mathilde, 40, is a single mother of three working in Paris at a large multinational company. For the past eight years, her job has provided her with a deep sense of satisfaction. That all changes when she contradicts her boss during an important presentation. Her once happy work life vanishes as he systematically sets out to destroy her reputation. Meanwhile, Thibault, 40, works as an emergency doctor, navigating Parisian traffic to make house calls while pondering his recent breakup with an emotionally absent girlfriend. Underground Time, shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt, examines one day in Mathilde's and Thibault's lives as they negotiate the demands of stressful jobs and endure the loneliness of living in a metropolis. De Vigan has beautifully captured the behind-the-scenes agendas of personal and professional lives: the monotonous daily commute, the fragile work relationships, and the many shades of on-the-job violence. Despite an unexpected conclusion that may throw some readers off, this is an engrossing, well-paced story that takes us into a world most of us know but rarely discuss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2011

Mathilde and Thibault, strangers to each other, experience deep misery as they navigate the soul-sucking crush of daily life in Paris. After a long run as a talented marketing executive, Mathilde, a 40-year-old widow with three young sons, is systematically being destroyed by her boss (and former mentor), whose bullying escalates as the weeks go by. Thibault, a traveling paramedic who has just dumped his emotionless lover, finds no solace as he battles traffic congestion to visit the homes of invisible citizens who have fallen off society's radar. De Vigan's gift for unvarnished and beautifully described angst builds unbearably as the two characters cling to hope and sanity, believing that their salvation can only come in the form of a perfect lover. VERDICT De Vigan romanticizes absolutely nothing in this sharply observed study of the suffocating trap of urban hopelessness. She shows no mercy to her readers, who will find themselves gritting their teeth and hoping that Mathilde's and Thibault's bottomless suffering will be cured by the too-oft-used magical meet-up and happy ending. Instead, this masterly author, winner of France's 2008 Prix des Libraires for No and Me, throws a curveball that all sophisticated readers will want to catch. [See Prepub Alert, 5/23/11.]--Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.