Didier Daeninckx, Le roman noir de l’Histoire (2019): Dismantling the Tale of French History through Disseminated Micro-Histories

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines the excavation of memories and truths that officialdom would rather remain buried in the work of French noir novelist Didier Daeninckx. It examines Daeninckx’s (Le roman noir de l’Histoire. Lagrasse: Verdier, 2019) magnum opus Le roman noir de l’Histoire. This is not a novel as historical document or as historical mimesis but rather a collection of seventy-six short stories that collectively recount eleven periods in French and European history from 1855 to 2030—and where the emphasis is placed on the kaleidoscopic nature of ‘history from below’, that is, individual fragments that do not necessarily add up to a coherent whole. The chapter argues that Daeninckx’s move from the crime novel to short stories (where crimes occur) complicates the genre’s typical preference for linearity where a single investigation is brought to resolution.