Black Water Lilies by Michel BussiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Extraordinary. Plotting that sets ones head in a spin. Mesmerising. ‘Twin Peaks’ came to mind. There were times when I wondered if I had strayed into the pages of some dystopian place, somewhere imaginary. Riddles within riddles. And yet, this accomplished work is set in Giverny, Normandy - the home of Claud Monet and the famous lily pond that featured in so many of his paintings.
Jérôme Morval is a resident, a renowned ophthalmologist, has a passion for art and women and meets an untimely death, found dead in the stream that runs through the gardens of Giverny. In his pocket is a postcard of Monet’s Water Lilies with the words: Eleven years old. Happy birthday.
Three women are entangled in the plot: a young painting prodigy, a seductive schoolteacher and an old widow who watches over the village from a mill by the stream.
All three share a secret…
Do they know anything about Morval’s corpse? Is there a connection to the mysterious, rumoured painting Black Water Lilies?
The timeline had me flummoxed moving as it does from 1937 to 2010 and there were times that I lost track of where on earth I was as Bussi breaks all the rules of plotting. And the ending when it comes - the reveal - is seismic in its effect. I was completely blind-sided. A triumph, elegant and haunting.
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