In this life-size game of Clue, six psychiatric patients in Paris’s Saint Anne’s Hospital are suspects in the murder of Dr. Black. Though Not a Clue tells the stories of these possible assassins, their lives, and what has brought them to the hospital, the true focus of Chloé Delaume’s intense and tumultuous novel is not merely to discover the identity of the murderer. Rather, by cleverly combining humor with the day-to-day effects of life’s unrelenting compromises, Not a Clue is an astute commentary on the current state of literary production and consumption.
Masterfully juggling an omniscient narratrix, an accusing murder victim, at least six possible suspects as well as their psychiatrists, and a writer who intervenes by refusing to intervene, Delaume uses the characters, weapons, and rooms of the board game Clue to challenge—sometimes violently, sometimes playfully—the norms of typography, syntax, and narrative conventions.
Author Bio
Chloé Delaume is an award-winning French novelist. Among the more than twenty texts she has published since 2000, her second novel, Le Cri du sablier, was awarded the Prix Décembre in 2001. Dawn M. Cornelio is a professor at the University of Guelph in Canada. Her work has appeared in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Women in French Studies, and elsewhere.
Praise
Praise for the original French edition
“Like a lace maker, [Delaume] stitches together words, tears apart adjectives, tugs on adjectives, swells with parenthetical asides, and drenches her prose with equal doses of references to mythology as to pop songs.”—Émilie Grangeray, Le Monde
“With dazzling virtuosity, with its pirouettes, winks, and dizzying mirrored reflections, the final third of the novel in particular brings to mind both baroque esthetics and The Lady from Shanghai’s hall of mirrors. The whole thing is as exhilarating as it is moving.”—Catherine Henry, BenzineMagazine
Table of Contents
Introduction by Dawn M. Cornelio Studio First Officer Miss Scarlet Miss Scarlet in the Kitchen Miss Scarlet in the Kitchen with the Monkey Wrench Study (Reload) Professor Plum Professor Plum in the Ballroom Professor Plum in the Ballroom with the Candlestick Second Officer Gardens Mrs. White Mrs. White in the Lounge Mrs. White in the Lounge with the Lead Pipe Hall Third Officer Dining Room Fourth Officer Colonel Mustard Colonel Mustard in the Billiard Room Colonel Mustard in Billiard Room with the Revolver Passageway(s) Fifth Officer Mrs. Peacock Mrs. Peacock in the Library Mrs. Peacock in the Library with the Rope Swamp Sixth Officer Mr. Green Mr. Green in the Conservatory Endgame