Lorraine Epsom review by Andrew Gallix – a chronically funny satire of the literary landscape | imaginary

FRoyd would have had a lot to say about a novel in which the central premise is the murder of writers. Is it a manifestation of a repressed desire to eliminate rival literary talent? A clear case of death drive? Either way, there’s some twisty action going on in Andrew Gallix’s chronically funny debut novel, Lorraine Ipsum.

The interesting, morbid premise quickly becomes secondary to the careless satire in the vanity gallery of current literary culture. Not since Paul Ewen’s How to Be a Public Author has so much joyful disdain for pretentious authors, critics, and actors flowed onto the page. Taking its title from the placeholder text used while preparing a book for printing, the novel features the eponymous protagonist, a Paris-based journalist, researching a study on the reclusive English author Adam Wandle. Lorraine Ipsom somehow manages to be the moral center of the book and a changing cipher for all that is wrong with contemporary literary life. With “a heart of frosted glass,” she is “all blurred and radio-static.” Her first novel, Fifty Shades of Gray Matter, was published by Galley Beggar in 2019. Her favorite bookshop is Shakespeare and Company (“She had all her bags”), and her best party dress is “part Mondrian, part Battenberg.” Lauren’s favorite things to list are the Bougie London Literary Woman top and the punk bodice. It’s that kind of book. In the end, you can’t see the newness in all the posts surrounding it.

As the death toll of Paris-based clerks rises, a mysterious terrorist group claims responsibility, though its motives are unclear. Fortunately, the location moves to Antibes, where the carnival action can continue. When Loren joins a literary party on a yacht, there’s a clear reference to Fellini’s 8½, with its sombre cavalcade of up-and-coming attitudes. Marcello Mastroianni himself later makes a cameo in a segment dedicated to Le Tournon, the Parisian café where Joseph Roth drank himself to death and where Wandel goes to hide and write his ponderous prose.

In between these scenes are entire chapters devoted to band names (“The Old Duffers, Omnishambles, The Opening Gambits”), and a heterogeneous cast of the great and the good: “Guy Debord in hot pursuit of a statue of Demi Mondagne fashioning a reflective hat… Gilles Deleuze morphs into Martha and the Muffins.” There are contributions from Andrew Wylie, Roland Barthes, and Richard Hell, as well as Jalix’s publisher, author Sam Mills. There’s also the constant gag of pun chapter titles: what do we talk about when we talk about talking; Quiet days in noisy. My favorite is “The Man Without Quality Streets.” While some of the jokes went too far (“the adorable crackle of Žižek-shaped ice cubes”), others hit the target with laser-guided precision. For example, the moment when the aptly named Soustine Zanzibar, “which always tried and failed to convey the inadequacy of words in words,” came up with the concept of a novel printed in disappearing ink.

Towards the end, the book takes a darker turn: “Shocking footage was broadcast of a sensitive reader being tarred and feathered and then chained to the railings in Mecklenburg Square.” Then there is the fate of the English writer Patrick Berkman, who moves to Montreuil, but soon finds that the suburbs make him feel like he doesn’t belong, “just as he made them feel like they didn’t belong in France.” He was later found dismembered, his “sick body” partially eaten. Here, Galix reinforces the idea that comedy is the best place to say something serious; In this case, about France’s isolation of immigrant communities. This is also evident in his unstoppable puns and word games. Thanks to their subversive and barbaric quality, they remain on the right side of intelligent intelligence.

Packed with literary and pop-cultural allusions and bizarre wordplay, Lorraine Ipsum ultimately marshals a conversation about the uses and potential uselessness of literature. She’s got a smart wit and a punk rock style that’s completely addictive. Destined, as they say, to become a cult classic.