From the best-selling author of Three Strong Women comes a thrilling
novel about a triple homicide that dredges up unsettling memories from a
lawyer's childhood.
The heroine of Marie NDiaye's new novel is Maître Susane, a quiet
middle-aged lawyer, living a modest existence in Bordeaux, known to all
as a consummate and unflappable professional. But when Gilles Principaux
shows up at her office asking her to defend his wife, who is accused of
a horrific crime, Maître Susane begins to crack.
She seems to remember having been alone with him in her youth for a
significant event, one her mind obsesses over but can't quite
reconstruct. Who is this Gilles Principaux? And why would he come to
her, a run-of-the-mill lawyer, for such an important trial?
While this mystery preoccupies Maître Susane, at home she is
increasingly concerned about Sharon, her faithful but peculiar
housekeeper. Sharon arrived from Mauritius with her husband and
children, and she lacks legal residency in France. And while Maître
Susane has generously offered Sharon her professional services, the
young maid always finds ways to evade her, claiming the marriage
certificate Maître Susane requires is being held hostage. Is Sharon
being honest with Maître Susane, or is something more sinister going on?
Told in a slow seethe recalling the short novels of Elena Ferrante and
the psychological richness of Patricia Highsmith's work, Vengeance Is
Mine is a dreamlike portrait of a woman afflicted by failing memories
and a tortured uncertainty about her own past that threatens to be her
undoing.
