That time of year

French writer Ndiaye (The Cheffe) serves up a blistering critique of bourgeois French society in this eerie tale. Herman, a Parisian teacher, is on vacation with his family in a remote village, and one stormy evening his wife and child disappear. As he searches for them, his fear for their safety dissipates into numbing frustration as he navigates the complex village gendarmerie and other bureaucracies, where everyone is polite but never truly helpful. He meets Alfred, a low-level bureaucrat who claims Herman will never see his family again unless he becomes a villager, leading Herman to take a room next to Alfred's at an expensive inn, where Herman gradually learns that the villagers' elaborate displays of gentility, such as an extended bow from the innkeeper, mask cruel intentions. Everything Herman once found important--his job, family, ambition, even his personal appearance--slides away as he loses touch with himself, "no longer troubling to determine the date." Ndiaye pulls off a fascinating group portrait of the town, capturing the shifts in behavior of each character in relation to the power they hold or are beholden to. Her chilling tale offers a powerful chronicle of the failure of one man's will. (Sept.)

A Parisian family that summers each year in a small village learns the hard way they have overstayed their welcome in this deeply unsettling and slippery novella. On Sept. 1, Herman embarks on a search for his wife, Rose, and their son, who had gone to the neighboring farmhouse to pick up eggs and not returned. Never having stayed past the end of August before, he is shocked by the sudden turn in the weather from sunny and temperate to cold and rainy literally overnight, a pathetic fallacy and our first introduction to the village as a character of menacing proportions, populated by disturbing residents, all of whom slide sideways around Herman's ever increasing anxiety in charming, yet frighteningly empty, ways. When he seeks out the village's mayor to tell him what's going on, he meets Alfred, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, who turns out to be a former Parisian who also once stayed past summer's end. Alfred takes Herman on as a project, vowing to turn him into a local, and sets Herman on a path where he must find a way to withstand the unending gray, stormy landscape or simply melt away. As he attempts to navigate the village's internal politics and strangely archaic rituals with Alfred's help, he falls helplessly into its life as if tumbling down a rabbit hole into Wonderland, his urgency slowly transforming to inert apathy. When he finally learns what happened to his wife and child, he ends up with more questions than answers. Utterly compelling in tone, plot, and style, this slim, sleek story has a veneer of sly sophistication that belies the horror of malignancy within the village and Herman himself. Part ghost story, part satiric horror, this gorgeously eerie book will keep you holding your breath even past the end. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The president broke into a spirited laugh, patting Herman's knee under the table. But Herman's dismay had waned the moment he heard the receptionist's name. Moved, he looked at her, and Métilde smiled back with an air of genuine friendship. "Yes, you're going to help me," Herman said to himself, "and then . . . " Flattered, happy, he was caught up in a sort of euphoria that made him want to talk to everyone around him, to explain himself, to earn their pity and esteem. When Charlotte came back and sat down, he leaned toward her and Métilde, and in a voice loud and clear enough to be heard by everyone in the room he recounted at length what had happened to his family, his failure at the gendarmerie, the idea he'd first had of going to see the mayor. All the while, he studied the two women's faces respectfully turned toward his, their eyes attentive, their brows thoughtful. A flood of joy washed over him, and he forgot to be ashamed of it as he told them of Rose and his little boy. He didn't think anyone had ever listened to him so closely, so patiently, with such consideration and good will. Everyone around him had fallen silent. Frozen in mid-bow, Charlotte's mother pressed the salad bowl to her belly, as if in prayer, meditative, drinking in Herman's words. The corners of Métilde's mouth were delicately turned up in a caring little smile. Herman exulted in feeling so tragic: had anyone ever thought of him that way, had he ever, just once, moved someone? Then the thought of Rose turned abstract, supplanted by the intense pleasure of attracting the sympathy of the women around him, of holding their still unknown, obscure minds in his grip. When he finished he glanced at the president. Alfred was contemplating him, leaning back in his chair. Herman couldn't make out if he approved. But he was vaguely troubled, once again, by the strange, unpleasant sense of a syrupy wave of affection pouring from Alfred's face, a face fleshy and severe as a watchful pasha's, the moment Herman turned toward him, even briefly. "Poor man," his neighbor with the many pens remarked in a soft, melodious voice. Excerpted from That Time of Year by Marie NDiaye All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.