“Even though there is a certain logic in a crime novelist having found the formula for the perfect crime, these things usually belong to fiction and have the good sense to remain there.” – excerpt from the press conference of Stephen Carrière, publisher. In this new novel by Jérôme Fansten, the crime novel is viewed from a new angle, that of the confessing murderer. And the murderer is none other than the author himself, or his double. Or maybe not.
Nice Premium read this Manual of Dramaturgy for the Use of Assassins and concluded that to carry out the perfect crime, you need two.
Because Jérôme Fansten doesn’t exist, at least not really. According to his Wikipedia page, the screenwriter and novelist is not just Jérôme Fansten, but is also the entity.
Two twins sharing the same life, living one day at a time. Their mother only registered one child at the civil registry, forcing her children to play a double game. While one goes to school, the other is confined to the cellar.
More than thirty years after their birth, they have found a goal: revenge. And the entity will offer them the perfect cover: if Jérôme Fansten is here at this party, he cannot possibly be there, committing murder, right?
Manual of Dramaturgy for the Use of Assassins is not an ordinary book. Sure, it talks about revenge, a theme seen and re-seen in literature, but this Manual is a bit more than that… At first, it feels like reading the biography of a killer. But did Jérôme Fansten really kill someone? Does Jérôme Fansten, the author, really have a hidden twin?
It is undoubtedly an original work published by Anne Carrière editions, a skillfully orchestrated thriller whose plot is gradually absorbed by the desires of the entity. This precise and intelligent novel ceaselessly leads us astray.
In love with L., one of the two Jérôme Fansten wishes to put an end to this revenge and resume a calm, legal existence. But the other Jérôme Fansten will not give in. A bit schizo, this Jérôme Fansten? Yes, probably. But his writing manages to plunge us entirely into this story.
Mixing real characters (Anne and Stephen Carrière, Maud Mayeras, Erik Wietzel…), false events, real news, real photos, excerpts from emails, pieces of notes, and dialog with his publisher, the reader no longer knows what to believe. A dose of irreverence, slightly immoral, and very captivating, Manual of Dramaturgy for the Use of Assassins is all at once, the manual, the author’s diary, a summary of research for the manual, an investigation into the investigation launched after one of his crimes. It’s enough to get lost, yet not. No need to hold on, Jérôme Fansten’s writing does the work, and despite the book’s weight, the text is fluid, well-written, and never confusing. Original in both substance and form, this noir novel is impossible to fit into a single category.
It is also a scathing, though probably somewhat exaggerated, portrait of the world of cinema and literature, which is delightful to explore. In short, an unexpected and engaging story where notions of reality and fiction are skillfully intertwined.
