Emmanuel Carrère's The Adversary - A crime or a prayer?

“Now, if merely to be present at a murder fastens on a man the character of an accomplice; if barely to be a spectator involves us in one common guilt with the perpetrator; it follows of necessity, that, in these murders of the amphitheatre, the hand which inflicts the fatal blow is no more deeply imbrued in blood than his who sits and looks on.”  Thomas De Quincey, postscript to ‘On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts’ quoting the fourth Century theologian Lactantius  

There's been a slight, edgy pause whenever I've opened my latest read on the London Underground. Producing it from my pocket or bag, I'd glance shiftily across and then to the side in anticipation of the judgement of fellow passengers. A ridiculous notion: short of performing magic tricks in the nude, you'll struggle to attract a second glance on the Tube. Why the unease then? Because I've been reading 'true crime'. Magnificently written true crime, but still, a genre that I associate with ... well, let's come back to that.

Twitter friend and writer Kristal Sheets turned me on to Emmanuel Carrère. I read a wonderful overview of his work in The New York Times and immediately requested The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception from my local library. The book's tag line is no exaggeration. Published in 2000, it is the story of Jean-Claude Romand, a man who murdered his wife and two children, his parents and their dog, and then botched - perhaps deliberately - his own suicide. Prior to this monstrous act he had spent eighteen years fooling his family and friends into believing he was a successful medical professional and researcher at the Geneva based World Health Organisation, where he worked alongside and hobnobbed with major medical and political figures. The double life alone is staggering, convincing intelligent, medically trained friends, of his vocation.   

Typefaces are telling

Carrère is at first fascinated by the case, and writes to Romand suggesting that he tell his story to him which he will then publish in book form. There is no answer, time passes and Carrère moves on. A few years later when the case is just coming up to trial, Romand replies expressing willingness to have his story told. Carrère tells us that the project has made him uneasy and that he no longer feels the urge to pursue it. But since he'd already set things in motion, he agrees to go ahead. It is this equivocation that I find fascinating, particularly as it reveals why many of us may have a problem with true crime. Carrère outlines his unease: 

"I felt pity, a painful sympathy, following in the footsteps of that man wandering aimlessly, year after year, harbouring his absurd secret that he could confide to no one and that no one should learn on pain of death.  Then I thought about the children, about the photos of their bodies taken at the morgue: raw horror that makes you instinctively shut your eyes, shake your head to erase it all from reality.  I had thought I was finished with these tales of madness, confinement, freezing cold .... And here I was again, chosen (a strong term, I know, but I don't see how I can say it any other way) by that atrocious story, drawn within the orbit of the man who had done that.  I was afraid.  Afraid and ashamed.  Ashamed in front of my children, that their father should be writing about that."  

And as with writing about that, likewise reading about that. Shame - harder to detect and buried deeper - rather than any shallow snobbery about reading something cheap, is what was burrowing to the surface on those tube journeys. This point is brought home a few pages later, when Carrère's eyes meet Romand's for the very first time across a crowded court room.     

"Only towards the end of the morning did he risk looking over the courtroom audience and the press section. His eyeglass frames glinted behind the window that separated him from all of us. When his eyes finally met mine, we both looked quickly away."

Jean-Claude Romand

What is extraordinary here is that they both look away. We can expect Romand to flinch - he's playing a part as he has done all his life - but Carrère's blink is surprising. The seasoned writer, ready to sound the depths of the human soul, is still not feeling up to the task. Indeed, these moments only occasionally intrude upon the story, but like depth charges they do their job, exploding when least expected and reminding us that we are privy to something both human and abominable. Towards the end of the trial Carrère shares a meal with some of the journalists who have been reporting on the case. One of them, Martine Servadoni lets him know what she thinks: 

"He must be just thrilled that you're writing a book on him! That's what he's dreamed about his whole life.  So it was a good thing that he killed his parents - all his wishes have come true. People talk about him, he's on TV, someone's writing his biography, and he's well on his way to becoming a saint."

Carrère doesn't need to remark on the irony that Servadoni and her copy are no doubt just as culpable as he is. And we don't need to stretch at all to feel that Servadoni is also deflecting her own shame in these remarks.    

Emmanuel Carrère

But as humans, read we must. And the twenty or so pages that detail those final, heartbreaking crimes exercise a grip that is as powerful as any that I have ever read. Matter of fact in their narrative force, they mix horrific evil with the banal. After the twentieth century we are well attuned to the latter, and it rarely comes as a surprise. Perhaps, for some of us, finding refuge in the banal is the only way to deal with evil. Later on in the story, after Romand has been sentenced and is about to be sent to a new prison, a host of prison visitors, well meaning Christians, take the murderer under their wing and attempt to cheer him up by sending new clothes for his winter wardrobe: "He already has the blue pullover, which is warm, but it would be good if he also had he grey Polarfleece sweater; perhaps Emmanuel could take it to him?"  Emmanuel refuses.  "I found their affection - so straightforward, so natural - both admirable and almost monstrous. Not only was I myself not capable of it, but I did not wish to be."

Carrère does not give Romand the literary redemption that he craves. In his final analysis he finds him to be "a pathetic mixture of blindness, cowardice, and distress."  He is more equivocal of the purpose behind his own undertaking.  "I thought that writing this story could only be either a crime or a prayer." As we follow and read, we must also ask that question of ourselves.   

Postscript: Jean-Claude Romand was released from prison in June this year.