Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2006), Paperback, 144 pages
Description
Marking the 100th anniversary of Simenon's birth, this classic reissue follows on the steam of a major marketing campaign from Chorion, including a radio series scheduled for 2003. Here readers meet Steve Hogan, an ordinary man in an ordinary life, whose night of horror begins with the brief radio announcement that a prisoner had escaped from Sing Sing. Finding himself once again in a tunnel of depression, Hogan's one act of defiance, to enter the neon-lit bar and leave his wife alone in the car outside, will lead him to quiet but terrifying night...and the dread of what morning may bring.
User reviews
LibraryThing member nohablo
Red Lights, Georges Simenon
Let's front-load this by saying that RED LIGHTS is imperfect. It's a thriller on the smallest scale, obsessed with the domestic and the inane, shredding its fingers on throw-away details and half hours. It's also a little hinky in terms of pacing and resolution; not all
Let's also say that it is also claustrophobic, creeping, and eerie; a beautiful replica in miniature of common horrors. Simenon's writing is lean and functional and an absolute incantation. God knows "Evocative" has got to be one of the most over-abused adjectives in the history of reviews, but goddamn EVOCATIVE IS WHAT THIS IS. Simenon has a supernatural ability to drill in the teeth-grinding frustration and terror of everyday life, and he perfectly captures the wooziness of drunkeness, the slow-burn ache of a hangover, and, yeah, the next-day sound of the bottom of your heart dropping out. Read it. It's very fast, it's very mean, and - for all its prickling flaws, mostly clustered near the end quarter; the beginning half, I'd argue is glassy perfection - excellent.
Let's front-load this by saying that RED LIGHTS is imperfect. It's a thriller on the smallest scale, obsessed with the domestic and the inane, shredding its fingers on throw-away details and half hours. It's also a little hinky in terms of pacing and resolution; not all
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the pieces fit together, and the ending is a bit ramshackle and far from air-tight. Let's also say that it is also claustrophobic, creeping, and eerie; a beautiful replica in miniature of common horrors. Simenon's writing is lean and functional and an absolute incantation. God knows "Evocative" has got to be one of the most over-abused adjectives in the history of reviews, but goddamn EVOCATIVE IS WHAT THIS IS. Simenon has a supernatural ability to drill in the teeth-grinding frustration and terror of everyday life, and he perfectly captures the wooziness of drunkeness, the slow-burn ache of a hangover, and, yeah, the next-day sound of the bottom of your heart dropping out. Read it. It's very fast, it's very mean, and - for all its prickling flaws, mostly clustered near the end quarter; the beginning half, I'd argue is glassy perfection - excellent.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: It is Friday evening before Labor Day weekend. Americans are hitting the highways in droves; the radio crackles with warnings of traffic jams and crashed cars. Steve Hogan and his wife, Nancy, have a long drive ahead—from New York City to Maine, where their
On a bender now, Steve makes a friend: Sid Halligan, an escapee from Sing Sing. Steve tells Sid all about Nancy. Most men are scared, Steve thinks, but not Sid.
The next day, Steve wakes up on the side of the road. His car has a flat, his money is gone, and there’s one more thing still left for him to learn about Nancy, Sid Halligan, and himself.
My Review: Norman Denny's translations are the kind of jobs I and my bookish kin adore when we find them: transparent. There isn't any evidence of the book being written in any language but English.
*happy sigh*
The book's plot isn't much, and I don't think that was accidental. Instead, it felt to me like the author's intention to examine the futility of modern America.
In the 1950s the modern-modern, computerized, small government and big truck fan world were a-bornin' and no one knew that to expect. Naturally enough, as the future resists being pinned down. The fact that Simenon, a Belgian gentleman of a certain age, had seen enough history to know what was coming. Short,amusing, solidly built...the kind of book I eat like olives. Too many to be good for me, too salty not to drool after.
Don't drool, get the book and start. You'll be about 2 hours happily stitched to your reading furniture.
The Publisher Says: It is Friday evening before Labor Day weekend. Americans are hitting the highways in droves; the radio crackles with warnings of traffic jams and crashed cars. Steve Hogan and his wife, Nancy, have a long drive ahead—from New York City to Maine, where their
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children are in camp. But Steve wants a drink before they go, and on the road he wants another. Soon, exploding with suppressed fury, he is heading into that dark place in himself he calls “the tunnel.” When Steve stops for yet another drink, Nancy has had enough. She leaves the car. On a bender now, Steve makes a friend: Sid Halligan, an escapee from Sing Sing. Steve tells Sid all about Nancy. Most men are scared, Steve thinks, but not Sid.
The next day, Steve wakes up on the side of the road. His car has a flat, his money is gone, and there’s one more thing still left for him to learn about Nancy, Sid Halligan, and himself.
My Review: Norman Denny's translations are the kind of jobs I and my bookish kin adore when we find them: transparent. There isn't any evidence of the book being written in any language but English.
*happy sigh*
The book's plot isn't much, and I don't think that was accidental. Instead, it felt to me like the author's intention to examine the futility of modern America.
In the 1950s the modern-modern, computerized, small government and big truck fan world were a-bornin' and no one knew that to expect. Naturally enough, as the future resists being pinned down. The fact that Simenon, a Belgian gentleman of a certain age, had seen enough history to know what was coming. Short,amusing, solidly built...the kind of book I eat like olives. Too many to be good for me, too salty not to drool after.
Don't drool, get the book and start. You'll be about 2 hours happily stitched to your reading furniture.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
What do you do when you are rushing toward the unknown, possibly a dangerous situation, and you are unable to stop? Georges Simenon takes us through just such an experience in this novel as we join Steve Hogan as he begins an unexceptional Labor Day weekend sharing a drink with his wife before they
The power of the novel comes from this suspense and from the psychological portrait of solitude and alienation that is slowly created moment by moment as Steve struggles, yet continually slips inexorably into danger and out of control.
"He called it "going into the tunnel," an expression of his own, for his private use, which he never used in talking to anyone else, least of all to his wife. He knew exactly what it meant, and what it was like to be in the tunnel; yet, curiously, when he was there he never allowed himself to admit the fact, except for occasional brief instants, and always too late."
Steve thinks about this behavior as the narrative builds through precise detail his journey in this "tunnel" of his own making. Moreover he meditates about his and other men's ability to live life outside of the tracks of a normal life that most people, especially women, follow. His thoughts about this and his rationalization of his drinking combine to lead him into very dangerous territory. Yet developments in his relationship with his wife over which he has no control loom as an even larger problem for him. The question ultimately becomes one of whether he can change his very out of control direction in time to save both his own life and that of his family.
Simenon lived in the United States for just a few years and set nine of his American novels on the east coast. This novel, due in large part to an attention to realistic detail, reads like the work of a writer who had lived here all his life.
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head north to Maine to retrieve their two children from Summer Camp. What we know is that Steve has premonitions about the trip almost from the beginning and that he has a problem with alcohol. What we don't know is how serious and dangerous a trip it may become. Simenon succeeds in creating a seemingly mundane life for Steve and that makes the suspense which builds throughout the story even more effective.The power of the novel comes from this suspense and from the psychological portrait of solitude and alienation that is slowly created moment by moment as Steve struggles, yet continually slips inexorably into danger and out of control.
"He called it "going into the tunnel," an expression of his own, for his private use, which he never used in talking to anyone else, least of all to his wife. He knew exactly what it meant, and what it was like to be in the tunnel; yet, curiously, when he was there he never allowed himself to admit the fact, except for occasional brief instants, and always too late."
Steve thinks about this behavior as the narrative builds through precise detail his journey in this "tunnel" of his own making. Moreover he meditates about his and other men's ability to live life outside of the tracks of a normal life that most people, especially women, follow. His thoughts about this and his rationalization of his drinking combine to lead him into very dangerous territory. Yet developments in his relationship with his wife over which he has no control loom as an even larger problem for him. The question ultimately becomes one of whether he can change his very out of control direction in time to save both his own life and that of his family.
Simenon lived in the United States for just a few years and set nine of his American novels on the east coast. This novel, due in large part to an attention to realistic detail, reads like the work of a writer who had lived here all his life.
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Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1953
Physical description
144 p.; 8.02 inches
ISBN
1590171934 / 9781590171936
Local notes
French title: Feux Rouges