The Little Saint

‘The Little Saint’ is a milestone in Simenon’s extraordinary career, an entirely new departure for him. For the first time he has depicted a life that develops serenely rather than disintegrates. Little Louis is the illegitimate child of a buxom street vendor of fruits and vegetables in one of the most sinister neighborhoods of Paris, the Rue Mouffetard. He is small, delicate, totally unaggressive, something of a freak in a coarse and violent world. His mother, though promiscuous, is not vicious but warm and vital, and Louis is deeply attached to her. Simenon builds up the apartness of the child with the deftest of touches. He hits that “later” this early background will be of concern to the world and to Louis himself, without revealing whether Louis one day will be noted or notorious. Masterfully, he exposes the gradual unfolding of a singularly gifted man. By re-creating meticulously and visually all the changes in ways of life, fashion, and comfort in the Paris before and after World War I, Simenon has written both a historical and painterly novel of the time of Lautree, the early Picasso, Braque, and Matisse – though these men never enter the story, their spirit does. This is at once a strong, a vital, and a subtle work, which reveals Simenon at the height of his perceptive powers – a fully matured masterpiece. Book Dust Jacket