18 years ago Hector Loursat's wife left him and their young daughter Nicole (who he is not convinced is his) for a younger man. At the time he was one of the best lawyers - a bright young man who was making his name in the world. That betrayal shattered him and he hid in his house letting himself get fat, drunk and unkempt, making sure that his daughter is provided for what she needs materially but not much beyond that.

And one night he hears a shot and before long finds a dead man in one of the bedrooms of the house. The following scandal involves his daughter and the police soon finds someone to accuse - Nicole's boyfriend. Everyone is ready to close the books on the murder, preserve the dignity of everyone involved as much as possible (as it turns out, while Hector Loursat was hiding from the world, Nicole had her own company and entertained in the rest of the house) and move on with their lives. Except for the old lawyer - he meets the young man and instead of being mad with him for sleeping with Nicole (especially because socially Emile is below the family), he decides to believe that he is not a murderer and tells the police and the magistrate that he is Emile's lawyer.

Except that nothing is that easy. The police had found their murderer so it falls to the lawyer to discover what happened. And unlike Perry Mason, he does not have a detective agency next door and had not spent the last decades solving cases. All he has is Nicole, the daughter who despises him. And yet, the two of them find a way to work together and the man who hid for 18 years finds the truth - despite wanting to crawl back into his rooms and hide again.

The novel is both a crime novel and a psychological profile of a man who lost everything and gave up. The leaving of the house and the opening of his mind to the world work in parallel - the claustrophobic feeling of the first pages of the novel gradually recedes and Hector emerges from his cocoon. The past and the present finally merge and his acceptance of what happened 18 years ago finally bring him back into the world - just on time to show everyone that all the booze had not dulled all his senses.

The novel was published in 1940 but the war is barely there - there is a single action which reminds you of it (a man mentions that he is a volunteer stretcher carrier) but outside of that the life in the small town is almost hidden from the world. It almost feels like a bottle inside of a bottle - the mind of Hector Loursat inside of the house inside of the town, sheltered by the world. Which adds to that initial feeling of claustrophobia and remains one of the general feelings in the novel - everyone seems to be struggling to get out of something.

P. D. James provides a wonderful introduction to the edition I read - as long as you had read the novel before or read the introduction at the end. ( )

A sus cuarenta y ocho anos, Hector Loursat, un abogado que apenas ejerce, vive atrincherado en el enorme caseron familiar que comparte con su hija Nicole -una taciturna muchacha de veinte anos con la que apenas habla- y una vieja y grunona cocinera. En la pequena localidad de Moulins, todos saben de las extravagancias de Loursat, quien, abandonado anos atras por su mujer, cultiva un soberano desprecio hacia el mundo en general y hacia la B+buena sociedadB; local en particular. Pero, una noche, esta existencia hosca y algo embrutecida por el vino se vera definitivamente alterada: Loursat oye unos pasos furtivos en los pasillos superiores de la casa; suena un disparo y, atonito, descubre no solo a un desconocido moribundo instalado en una de las habitaciones, sino que un grupo de jovenes, encabezados por su hija, se reunia clandestinamente en su propio hogar. En realidad, para Loursat las sorpresas no han hecho mas que empezar. . . Simenon escribio Desconocidos en casa en enero de 1939 en un periodo de su vida en que, en palabras de su biografo Patrick Marnham, B+il se sentait mal dans sa peauB; (se encontraba a disgusto consigo mismo). Tambien segun Marnham, con ella dio vida, sin embargo, no solo a una de sus obras cumbres, sino a su mejor novela sobre un alcoholico.

So there’s this guy, like, and he’s a lawyer but rich so he doesn’t have to work, and he’s been in an alcoholic daze for like 18 years, since his wife left him for Bernard, whoever that is. So he lives in this big dilapidated house with his 20 year old daughter, a cook, and a revolving cast of maids. So other than going for a walk, the same walk, each day and going down to his cellar to get his red wine, all he does is drink burgundy wine, read books he forgets, sleeps and goes to the dining room to eat. Otherwise he sits in his study or sleeps in the attached bedroom. He never says anything to his daughter Nicole, even at meals, who lives upstairs.

One night, this lawyer guy, he hears a sound like a bullwhip that wakes him up and, out of character, decides to investigate. He stumbles around the house he barely remembers. Eventually he comes into a room where a man in bandages is dying of a gunshot wound..... Loursat, after 18 years, finally opens his eyes and starts to see what’s around him. And that’s just the first chapter.

I ain’t gonna reveal who the dead guy is or who kilt him. You gotta read it. But, oh, skip the introduction because Baroness James gives it all away. More than I did. Honestly.

Loursat is the Everyman who blunders through life without seeing, without living. The novel, technically a mystery, is really about a man becoming alive to the world again. Simenon is sneaky, making it a page turner all the while commenting on people that are dead to the world around them. Loursat not only starts living but also starts caring about something, including his self esteem. He begins to see the flaws in all those around him even as he is honest about himself.

Simenon also manages to include some commentary on privilege, class, and poverty.

A mighty good, fast, read.

These nyrb books rarely disappoint and are always thought provoking. ( )

The Strangers in the House.
Hector Loursat is a lawyer who has not worked for some years and has now become a consumer of vast quantities of alcohol and withdrawn from society and life in general.
When he awakens one night to find a stranger in his house events start to unfold that will shake up his life and bring him to his senses.
This is Georges Simenon at his finest, a detective story that is not a detective story, but is but also has courtroom drama.
His characters are wonderful as ever, the settings and circumstances are unusual but believable.
Much of the story takes place in the underbelly of the city of Moulins, but Simenon makes the reader comfortable there.
At the start of the book the reader is likely to feel sorry for Loursat, but at the end they will be cheering with him.

Brilliant plot. Brilliant structure. Marvellous book.
Howard Curtis’s translation is impeccable, often stories of this sort become insipid because of the poor translation of difficult concepts, if you didn’t know that this book had been written in French you would believe it had been written in English. Great Job.

My thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy for honest review. ( )

Simenon. 't was even geleden dat we hem nog lazen. We maakten ooit kennis via Maigret (natuurlijk, wie niet?), maar ontdekten via 'de bananentoerist' dat hij een heerlijk schrijver was en bovenal een sterk ontleder van de menselijk ziel.

Onbekenden in huis ligt middenin de policiers en de eerde psychologische romans die Simenon schreef. Het is in zijn pure vorm een who dunnit opgebouwd rond de moord op een onbekende in het huis van een vereenzaamd advocaat. Maar de uitwerking is dat allerminst.

Sinds zijn vrouw hem in de steek liet, leeft advocaat Hector Loursat als kluizenaar en heeft hij zelfs amper contact met zijn dochter, hoewel die bij hem woont. Maar de moord brengt daar stilaan verandering in.
Onbekenden in huis is dan ook eerder de morele en feitelijke heropstanding van een man die zich teruggetrokken had uit de samenleving dan een moordraadsel. Het is indrukwekkend hoe Simenon zijn hoofdpersoon voorzichtig, schichtig en onwennig weer laat openbloeien. Dat hij met de verwondering van een kind weer naar de wereld en de mensen om hem heen kijkt, zorgt ook voor een zinvolle blik op de moordzaak. Het pleidooi in de rechtbank is strak en fris uitgewerkt maar het is vooral heerlijk hoe Simenon je doodsimpel om de oren slaat met plotse zinnen zoals:

"Een verre claxon drong door de laag van stilte heen, hen eraan herinnerend dat er om hen heen een kleine stad bestond, waarvan elke bewoner dacht dat hij het leven kende."

Heerlijk leesvoer! ( )