Inspiring Older Readers
The Road To Hell by Hubert Monteilhet
If there was ever a book that demonstrates just how superior a bookshop is to the internet if you are a lover of serendipity then this is it. I’ve never heard of Hubert Monteilhet and would have had no reason to ever search for his books but a browse on the shelves of a bookshop let me pick up this example, read the dust jacket and buy it purely on the grounds that it sounded intriguing. And so it turned out to be.
Monteilhet it turns out is a prolific French author who still, for some reason, has no easy-to-find English language profile on the internet. With a bit of persistence you can discover that he’s still alive at the grand old age of 89 and has had success as both a crime/thriller writer and as an historical novelist.
My French is almost non-existent but what I’ve gleaned is that critics often talk about Monteilhet as a ‘pulp’ author characterised by his amoral approach and that he frequently tells his stories through the eyes of the main victim/protagonist. Both of these are central features of The Road To Hell and both perspectives are absolutely central to its oddly magnetic appeal. I confess that I found it difficult to put the book down despite its often rickety plot.
Set in a small provincial French town, the story is narrated (whilst he’s being held in custody) by a schoolmaster in his early twenties who has just come to live in the town. He has no real friends and has not, it transpires, had any real relationships with women – an issue that becomes central to the story. He (and we) are puzzled at first by the seeming eccentricities of many of the people who live in this town – someone who keeps and feeds a giant St. Bernard dog even when he can’t feed his family; someone who raises piglets as if they were his children; someone with half a moustache; two women who keep weasels in their back garden; his headteacher who has a bust of Socrates adorned with animal ears; a city official who has painted his shutters vivid pink. All very mysterious.
That is until he gets an anonymous letter telling him that his sins (he has knocked over and killed a cyclist and he’s fond of masturbation) are known to someone who expects him to follow the instructions he is given in order that his secrets aren’t revealed. This it turns out is the answer to why half the town seems to be behaving strangely – they are all being blackmailed.
Naturally enough they decide they must try and find out who is responsible for this reign of terror and they come together to devise a plan to uncover the culprit. One by one we discover that the ‘victims’ are in fact perpetrators of some truly horrible crimes – abuse, murder, rape and incest – and despite their dreadful crimes we’re being drawn into sympathising with them.
I’m not going to reveal who is behind the anonymous letters nor how they have managed to discover such intimate details of everyone’s behaviour but suffice it to say you know it’s going to end badly for everyone. An innocent death and a suicide lead our narrator into the arms of the police, ironically in the frame for something he didn’t actually do.
The novel is, in truth, a bit of a pot-boiler but the extraordinary social satire and discourses on human cupidity and religion lift it above a simple who-has-done-what into a quite gripping morality tale. I think you’ll be lucky to stumble on a copy of this unless you comb second hand bookshops as relentlessly as I do but there are copies on sale on the internet and if you’re intrigued enough to get one it shouldn’t be too costly.
Terry Potter
March 2018