This book has been generating a lot of interest since its publication in France in 2020. Not only was it a bestseller there it was also the winner of the 2020 Prix Goncourt (the best-known French literature award). This intrigued me, and so I’m therefore pleased to read this English translation.
The story begins from a number of different aspects, a varied mixture of characters with complicated backgrounds and lifestyles. Blake is a trained assassin on his way to another ‘job’, Andre Vannier is an older character, an architect whose relationship with a younger woman has just broken down, David Markle is an airline pilot, Slimboy is a young Nigerian rap artist, Joanna Woods is an American lawyer and Victor Miesel is an author with some literary prowess, if not blockbuster sales. All of these are on board Air France flight 006 flying from Paris to New York in March 2021.
There is a slow build up from these different perspectives to begin with, all living very different lives. As this is a “literature” book, it should not be a surprise that there’s a lot of knowing observation and introspective navel-gazing in this part of the novel as the characters grapple with what has been going on in their lives at this point.
It is only about halfway through the book that it is revealed that the characters are connected and that due to a strange storm (Spoiler alert!), we now have two identical aeroplanes, one landing in the USA in March 2021, the other in June.
The idea of people disappearing and then reappearing is not a new one in SF (immediate thought was that of Stephen King’s The Langoliers, for example, not to mention Lost). To be fair, it is not a major thing here, although clearly life-changing.
Most of the book is really about the social and religious debates that could occur as a result of such an event. It involves religion, the idea of identity, psychological and scientific consequences, which are all covered here. It’s even a touch meta.
For a reader much of the pace is now created by telling us what has happened to the March group in the three months since their arrival in the USA. One has written a novel before committing suicide, one has gone onto world-wide fame, another has become pregnant. Things are both similar and different.
Two scientists, Professors Miller and Brewster-Wang, who created “Protocol 42” years ago, a sort-of what-do-we-do-when-the-impossible-happens procedure, now find themselves being asked to act upon it when the second plane lands. The FBI and various government leaders are brought into the picture at this point. Although there is a Trump-like US president, I did like the fact that the novel wears its French origins on its sleeve. It was pleasantly unusual to read French President Macron involved, although understandable as a significant proportion of the passengers were French.
All of this allows the reader to get to the heart of the novel and examine key concepts. Which group is real or are both groups are real is given some scientific and philosophical analysis.
There is also the bigger picture – Why has this happened? Could it happen again? One suggestion, for example, is that it’s a test sent by God – or something else – leading to quite a lot on the Matrix-y idea of us all being memes in the machine and such like.
Well, some of these questions are answered, but the focus in the last part of the book is about the psychological effects of this event on the world and what the two groups do when they finally meet each other. The good news is that, despite some predictions, there is no flash of light, no Quantum Leap disappearance but instead a resolution, of how people adjust to this new situation.
The conclusion may divide readers, although I was left wondering what happens next. There are elements of the story that are left deliberately ambiguous, which may annoy those readers looking for complete answers. Some of the characters are much more used than others. Nevertheless, overall The Anomaly is nuanced, intelligent and mature, an intriguing and engaging thought-puzzle and a what-if that would be worthy of The Twilight Zone. I enjoyed it.
The Anomaly by Herve le Tellier
Published by Penguin January 2022
336 pages
ISBN: 978-0241540480
Review by Mark Yon
