"Trois jours et une vie" de Pierre Lemaitre: an Engaged Writing within the Framework of the Crime Novel

Abstract

Pierre Lemaitre’s recognition as a Goncourt laureate pushed into the background his practice of crime novels, which had been his literary debut. This contribution focuses on Trois jours et une vie (2016), the first crime novel published after receiving the Goncourt. Based on the pillars of the thriller, the story takes on a personality of its own for its reflection on the theme of guilt and its implications―especially psychological―in the life of the murderer. It is only because the author has an in-depth knowledge of the mechanisms of the noir genre that he is able to make significant variations on the categories that make it up. He thus articulates a paradoxical transformation of his protagonist, who in his initial position appears as an aggressor, but whom the text turns into a victim of the structures that articulate the society. This article analyses the terms in which this evolution takes place through the study of key aspects of the genre such as space, the personality of the culprit and the environment of the protagonist.