Name: The Train
ISBN: 9781935554462

Georges Simenon

"Restored to print for the first time in more than forty years, this masterpiece of psychological suspense tells the tale of Marcel Féron--a poor man who, against all odds, has made a 'normal' life in a bucolic French village in the Ardennes. But one spring day in 1940, the German army invades France, and he must abandon his home and confront the fate that he has secretly awaited. Separated from his pregnant wife and young daughter in the chaos of flight, he joins a freight car of refugees hurtling southward ahead of the pursuing Nazis. There, he meets Anna, a sad-looking, dark-haired girl, whose accent is 'neither Belgian nor German, ' and who 'seemed foreign to everything around her.'"--Page 4 of cover.

The Train

Sarah Sammis

Georges Simenon was a Belgian born writer who had a prolific career. He's best known for his Commissaire Maigret series which spans 75 novels and 28 short stories. He also wrote many other stand alone pulp novels under a variety of pseudonyms.

As his Maigret series pretty much drowns out the other books, it's been difficult to find much information about The Train. I can tell you that it was first published in 1961 as Le Train and it was first translated into English in 1964. It has since been retranslated and reissued by Melville books; it was their review galley that I read.

Marcel Féron has a normal, unexceptional life as a radio repairman in the Ardennes region of France. He has a 4 year old daughter and a wife who is seven months pregnant. As Paris falls and Belgium is invaded, he realizes he and his family have to make their escape. They head for the trains. So does (nearly) everyone else.

When traveling to escape there's no time to think and little time to react. Féron takes the new facts of his life with the same calmness that he takes all other aspects of his life.

There's a detachment to Féron. He reports on the dangers on the train with the same quietude as he describes his morning routine at home. Féron is a hard character to read. He is very much akin to the protagonist in Banana Yoshimoto's The Lake but I just couldn't relate to him as well.