The man who wasn't Maigret : a portrait of Georges Simenon
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The man who wasn't Maigret : a portrait of Georges Simenon
（Penguin books）
Penguin, 1993
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Note
Previously published: London: Bloomsbury, 1992
Bibliography: p. 325-336
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Georges Simenon was, during his lifetime, the bestselling writer alive. He created Chief Inspector Maigret, one of the most-loved and sanest characters in modern fiction, but was himself an alcoholic, a fantasist, a man possessed by the demon of sexual jealousy, a crime writer whose own life was haunted by the possibility of crime. His stated ideal was family life, but he conducted a quarrel with his widowed mother that lasted for 50 years, and his own family life ended in catastrophe with the suicide of his daughter. He married twice and seduced hundreds of women, including Josephine Baker. Simenon's writing life was in itself quite a story. He wrote 193 novels under his own name and 200 under 17 pseudonyms. His sales were over 500 million in 55 languages. His admirers ranged from Celine and Colette to T.S. Eliot, Somerset Maugham, Fellini and George Steiner. The author, in this first portrait since Simenon's death, sets out to explain the connections between his childhood and his lifelong fascination with crime, and traces the relationship between the facts of his life and the tormented fiction he wrote.
The author has interviewed many of the people who knew him, and has drawn upon Simenon's letters, papers and copious writings to produce this biography. Patrick Marnham's books include "Fantastic Invasions: Dispatches from Contemporary Africa", "So far from God: A Journey to Central America" and "Trail of Havoc: In the Steps of Lord Lucan".
Table of Contents
- Prelude - Lausanne 1989: death of a man with no profession. Part 1 The scene of the crime: Liege 1903 - preliminaries to the death of a man with no profession
- the death of a childhood
- the boy columnist
- the death of a journalist
- the death of Kleine. Part 2 The idiot genius: "manger et faire l'amour"
- a certain idea of France
- death of a playboy
- the commissioner for refugees
- muddle, fear treachery and deceit. Part 3 A sickness and curse: the trap shuts
- Shadow Rock Farm
- the act of hate
- the man in the glass cage. Bibliography: notes on sources
- selected works of Georges Simenon
- the Maigret series
- the novels
- autobiographical writings
- additional fiction and non-fiction sources
- selected secondary sources.
by "Nielsen BookData"
