Someone Else by
Tonino Benaquista
pbk out September 05
(Bitter Lemon Press)
at £9.99
Seventeen pages in and Tonino Benacquista's perfectly judged opening chapter (a mini-
character study in itself) has set up a fascinating premise. Two strangers, newish members of
a Paris tennis club lacking partners with whom they can risk a match, play a fiercely
competitive game. Meeting after for a drink, each confesses in conversation an instance in
their lives when, for a fleeting (and liberating) moment, they became 'someone else'. Perhaps
a little drunk, they vow to make that condition more permanent, arranging to meet in three
years time. And if one has achieved the change, he can demand anything of the other.
That premise could, of course, be taken in any two of a thousand directions. Perhaps
coincidentally Benacquista has recently co-written a screenplay (with director Jacques
Audiard) which is a variation on James Toback's 1977 US film Fingers which explores the
related theme of the contradictions, extreme contradictions, which exist within one conflicted
protagonist (filmed as The Beat That My Heart Skipped, showing soon, I sincerely hope, at a
cinema near you). In Someone Else however Benacquista is more down to earth, lending the
book near universal appeal and relevance.
Both men are unexceptional, having realised their limitations and settled for a relatively
normal existence. But Thierry Blin soon realises that he is unhappy about most
things in his life: his small business as a picture framer, his less than passionate relationship
with his partner Nadine, even his name doesn't have the elegance he feels he deserves. The
first instinct of Nicholas Gredzinski, a minor executive in a growing conglomerate, on the other
hand, is to back away from the challenge. Grappling with his first hangover the following day,
he experiments with 'a hair of the dog' – and finds the prospect of a relationship with the
intriguing Loraine not unattractive...
Benacquista's hugely engaging narrative follows the two characters in alternate chapters,
continually posing questions about identity: how it is formed, how it may be compromised,
cheated on, distorted or disguised; how far is it possible to change – and can such a change
be both real and permanent? Not really a crime novel in the accepted sense of the phrase
(neither character commits a real crime) Benacquista nevertheless uses many of the crime
novel's techniques. Clues to the development of each of the two men are buried in the text;
the considerable suspense is driven by the structure of the alternating chapters, whilst the
plotting delivers its share of delicious surprises. Exuberantly written (and exceptionally
readably translated by Adriana Hunter), Benacquista's book is another triumph for the genre-
bending approach to crime fiction. Would this book have ever made it off the HarperCollins
slush-pile? It'd be nice to think so, but I doubt it.
Someone Else by
Tonino Benaquista
