Dominique Fabre is a contemporary French novelist who focuses on stories of the “ordinary” in order to give the reader an insight into the genuine integrity and beauty of the every-day. “The Waitress Was New” follows a few days in the life of Pierre, a 56 year-old career barman at Le Circle, a cafe in north-western Paris. Fabre quickly engages the reader with the day to day drama of this local Parisian cafe through the eyes of Pierre. Pierre comes off an an introspective loner who is able to distract himself from his loneliness through his job at Le Circle. Pierre is a constant observer of the details that surround him, yet remains an unattached listener in the lives of the people he meets.

The book follows the disappearance of Pierre’s boss at Le Circle as Pierre becomes engaged in conversation with his boss’s wife over this disappearance. At first the detached, honest descriptions and reflections of people and events reminded me of the realist tone of Albert Camus in “The Outsider”, but the lack of Camus’ dark, witty sarcasm, and the absence of the absurd, quickly alluded me to the fact that perhaps the association with Camus is only because Fabre is also French.

While I enjoy the style of Fabre’s writing, his subtlety does leave the reader with a rather large responsibility for empathy with the characters and circumstances. This is a book which deals with endings, in an undramatic sense, and the flow of the book in many ways lacks a dynamism that some people may require from a novel. However, this in itself mimics the personality of the main character, and works in favour for those of us who want to be taken by Fabre’s beautification of the ordinary.

Through the microcosm of a short time in the life of this aging barman the reader is able to grasp the sincere emotional underbelly of the characters which interject Pierre’s life. The novel remained a pleasant tale of an unromanticised existence which only strengthened the sense of understated integrity Pierre and his world enunciate which does achieve a sense of beauty and honesty.

I am a fan of this style of writing. For those who aren’t, this is a novel could arguably be viewed as nothing but a lofty short exploration of some existentialist ideas of “truth” and “honesty”. This book works in part because of its brevity, at 117 pages even if this isn’t your cup of tea you wont be hard pressed to get through it. This contemporary French tale (written in 2005, translated in 2008) remains a pleasant perspective on every-day Parisian life, with not a single painful cliche about Paris. This is the side of Paris I enjoy hearing about, and it leads you to delve deeper into the lives and motivations of its inhabitants. Well worth a look.

“The Waitress Was New” (La serveuse était nouvelle) was Fabre’s first book to be translated into English and is published by Archipelago. Buy it online here.