A very strange and uneven Simenon. At first, the premise is intriguing: a man, Fran�_ois Combe, leaves his flat due to the noise his neighbor and his neighbor���s odd guest make. How Simenon handles city life���and here, more especially, the pulse and feel of Manhattan���is very acute in the opening scenes: how through the thin walls one can ���know��� one���s neighbors, their inner psychologies, their demons, all without having met them in the flesh; how the city streets become a theatre on which an individual can enact and try to avoid his or her turmoil; how public spaces allow for the private to be dramatized rather than hidden from view.������

The latter is the most interesting to me as far as how Simenon handles this: despite the title���s emphasis on interior, private scenes, it is the more public scenes depicting Combe���s increasingly intimate (and, in my reading, increasingly inorganic) relationship with Kay that makes this novel both Simenon and not-Simenon. While there is a stress on psychology, as David suggests, there is too much in the latter part of the novel which results in a very uneven pace, especially for such a short work. I also found the chamber drama and at times claustrophobic dialogue between Combe and Kay to be cliched, oftentimes reminding me of Godard���s films (e.g., Une femme est un femme, Masculin f��minin) but without the certainty of Simenon playing with noir and American genres of pulp. Instead, it feels almost as if Simenon is embracing these rather than playing them off and against one another as he does so well at the start of Three Bedrooms... which ultimately sees the narrative fall quickly into disorder.������

This is definitely a worthy read, but it also is in no way indicative of Simenon���s major themes or concerns in his more successful fiction. In many ways, this feels like an experiment that half works and half doesn���t: for a writer as prolific as Simenon, perhaps we should applaud him for that rather than begrudge it. ( )

François Combe used to be a relatively well-known French actor. Then he fled France after a scandal with his wife and is now trying to make it in New York and learning that noone really cares about French actors (or at least this one). When we first meet him, he is about to flee his very noisy apartment - he cannot sleep, he cannot think so he goes out to clear his head. Then he ends up in a bar, meets a woman, Kay, and ends up walking the city with her before both of them end up in a hotel room.

It all could have ended here. But instead the two of them get obsessed with each other, each for their own reasons, and their story continues, violent and somehow romantic all at the same time.

The novel is a study in loneliness - both Kay and François are lonely and distrustful and almost cynical. As the story progresses, we learn more of both of their stories although as we see only his viewpoint, Kay's history remains shrouded in places (and her constant refusal to tell the truth does not help matter). Having been humiliated back in France, François is jealous (to the point of ridiculousness) and violent any time when he is unhappy with anything Kay does or says. And yet, they somehow manage to stay together much longer than one expects them to.

The story is based on Simenon's meeting with his second wife and I hope that the violent part were not part of their real life history. Joyce Carol Oates provides an introduction which adds some context (but as usual is spoilery if you never read the novel before).

It is not my favorite Simenon by far but it is a tight psychological novel about loneliness, obsession and what happens when a boy meets a girl and both of them are not at their best. ( )

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Brilliant, in my view. It depicts two sad and lonely souls who meet up in New York. At times it is sordid but beneath it all there is a desperate need for love. It is a read in one session book and all about loneliness in a big city. ( )

‘’It wasn’t on purpose that he sat down beside the woman. He realized it only when the white-coated black waiter was standing in front of him, impatient for his order.
The place smelled of fairgrounds, of lazy crowds, of nights when you stayed out because you couldn’t go to bed, and it smelled like New York, of its calm and brutal indifference.’’

Two strangers, a struggling French actor and a mysterious socialite, meet in a downtown diner in Greenwich Village, in Manhattan, as night turns into day. They decide to wander the streets of New York, and soon become lovers. Through the course of a few months, New York becomes the background of a stormy and fragile relationship between two people who must leave their wounds behind in order not to fall apart.

‘’They were hardly man and woman. They were two beings who needed each other.’’

Georges Simenon, one of the most important writers of the 20th century, wrote Three Bedrooms In Manhattan, inspired by Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks, a work that left its mark in American Realism. It is impossible to stay apathetic in front of Harper’s masterpiece -and this is true for the vast majority of his work - your mind immediately starts working, unconsciously writing a story. Who are these people? Why are they alone? Why are they dining in such a late hour? What is going on between them?

There is a dark, dreamy quality in Hopper’s Nighthawks and the same feeling and atmosphere permeate Simenon’s novel. In sparse, unadorned and flowing writing, we witness the story though Francois’s eyes and enter his rather troubled mind. Wounded by betrayal, he is afraid to accept Kay’s influence on him, to the point of obsession and momentary madness, while Kay’s sensitivity, fragility and flightiness provide the unreliable point of focus that makes us wonder on the evolution of the couple’s sentimental Odyssey in the city that never sleeps. And New York is there to remind them of their past choices and mistakes and to shelter a love that was born in its nightly streets, in an empty diner.

‘’She stumbled a few times because of her high heels. After about a hundred yards, she took his arms, and it seemed like the two of them had been walking the streets of New York at five in the morning, from the beginning of time.’’

Many thanks to Penguin Classics and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ ( )