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The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair

(Marcus Goldman #1)

Joël Dicker

4.08 · Rating details · 100,114 ratings · 10,274 reviews

August 30, 1975: the day fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan is glimpsed fleeing through the woods, never to be heard from again; the day Somerset, New Hampshire, lost its innocence.

Thirty-three years later, Marcus Goldman, a successful young novelist, visits Somerset to see his mentor, Harry Quebert, one of the country's most respected writers, and to find a cure for his writ ...more

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ebook, 463 pages

Published May 27th 2014 by Penguin Books (first published September 19th 2012)

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Jun 25, 2014 Alienor rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. OH MY GOD IT'S SO BAD

Spare yourselves; do not buy this book. It was physically painful to finish. If this is the yardstick by which we measure books these days, I'll just lock myself into past centuries and never ever read modern books. What ON EARTH caused this book to receive such acclaim???

So, just to get it out of the way, the construction kind of stands, although I'd have to think about even that. It's a little grotesquely baroque, with everyone seemingly having had a hand in the murder tha ...more

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Jul 16, 2017 Manny rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: french, older-men-younger-women, parody-homage, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, trash, switzerland

La Vérité sur la verité sur l'affaire Harry Quebert

"Reading bestsellers is like boxing, Marcus. They can both cause brain damage."

*********************************

"But wait," said Gahalowood. "I still don't understand. Why is the book so badly written? Why is the writing so atrocious that every other sentence causes the reader physical pain, why is the dialogue so flat, and why are none of the characters even remotely credible?"

I sighed. "You see," I said, "that's exactly the point. The book is ...more

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May 31, 2014 Amanda rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

You know that thing when you get your hands on the latest 600 page literary blockbuster, full of excitement and anticipation?
So you are reading greedily and it’s okay, but not completely engaging. However, in the back of your brain you are very aware of the many international literary awards this book has clocked up, the fact that it has been translated into 32 different languages and been reviewed gushingly over and over again - so you just know that any minute now you will be gobsmacked by it ...more

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Dec 07, 2018 Jim Fonseca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-books, french, mystery, new-england, detective-stories

This is an unusual book and a great mystery/detective story. It’s unusual in that it’s set in New England and you would never know that it was translated from the French. The Swiss author used to spend his summers in Maine.

The story is Lolita-ish. Thirty-three years ago a college English professor/famous author from New Hampshire fell in love with a 15-year old girl. But unlike Humbert, Nabakov’s predator, this author genuinely tried to block his emotions – discouraging the girl from visiting hi ...more

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Aug 01, 2015 Annet rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: coming-of-age, weird, favorites, favorite-author, crime, dark, new-york, wilderness-books-can-usa, family-ties, have-to-read-again

'How do you know when a book is finished?'
'Books are like life Marcus. They never really end...'

I just loved this book. Grand story and writing, unique in many ways, a calm but formidable buildup of the story which makes you want to keep going steady but with a building tension thinking all the time... 'what's going on here', great whodunit with unbelievable twists and turns til the last pages, remarkable set of characters, great setting... I just really enjoyed it from start to end.

And it's no 'How do you know when a book is finished?'
'Books are like life Marcus. They never really end...'

I just loved this book. Grand story and writing, unique in many ways, a calm but formidable buildup of the story which makes you want to keep going steady but with a building tension thinking all the time... 'what's going on here', great whodunit with unbelievable twists and turns til the last pages, remarkable set of characters, great setting... I just really enjoyed it from start to end.

And it's not only a crime story, it's a book about life, love, mistakes made ('Learn to love your failures Markus, because it is your failures that will make you who you are. It is your failures that will give meaning to your victories'), small town community living, boxing, running, writing... so much and all in such a great story.

It's about a summer in New Hampshire, in small town Somerset, when struggling author Harry Quebert fell in love with 15-year old Nola Kellergan, a forbidden love. 33 years later, her body is dug up from his yard, along with a manuscript copy of the novel that secured his lasting fame, 'The Origin of Evil'. Quebert is the only suspect. Markus Goldman, student once coached by Quebert, now a writer and friend, sets out to Somerset to investigate and clear Harry of any blame. Then... the story unfolds... (be careful not to pick up any spoilers!)

Interesting to see this book is 'controversial' in reviews, I see ratings going from 1 to 5. I'm on 4.5 going on 5. Fabulous book, worth every page for me. Made me think of John Irving's Garp, must be because of the setting New Hampshire, but also the sports, boxing instead of wrestling, but close, and the weird set of characters. Made me think of Donna Tartt's Goldfinch, maybe because of the setting New York and also, because of the quirky set of characters. Made me think of Twin Peaks, yes, definitely, because of the freaky atmosphere among the various characters. From my side: Recommended!

'You see Markus, the way it works in our society, we are constantly having to choose between reason and passion. Reason never helps anyone and passion is often destructive. So don't ask me to help you choose.' ...more

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Aug 01, 2014 Tommy Wallach rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This book is, without a doubt, the worst thing I've read in many years. The fact that it was published at all boggles the mind. Honestly...I want my money back. Christ but it's terrible. Joel Dicker should never publish another novel again. Or write anything. Even a grocery list. Or speak. He should go live in a monastery in the woods and never bother anyone again. Dear lord. Make it stop. ...more

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Jan 15, 2019 Jaline rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-completed, x-favourites

This novel reinforces for me why I love big books so much:

(1) They cover a lot of territory without feeling rushed or cramped.
(2) They leave room for many different sub-plots to add spice and enhancement to the main plot.
(3) Their expansiveness, when utilized properly, allows the reader to live thoroughly the experiences in the book, sharing space with the characters, and getting to know them.

In this novel, I was completely occupied with being surprised, shocked, and moved by the characters; som ...more

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Jun 20, 2014 Harris rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Yeah, I have no idea why this is supposed to be so amazing. The plot itself is kind of uninspiring and reminds me of so many "dark secrets in a small town" stories that Stig Larssen popularized. And really, it's trying to be The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (just minus the secret Nazis) so badly it's kind of laughable.

The characters were universally unlikable - and honestly the jet-set life of the best-selling author kind of made me laugh my ass off. Maybe I missed when Jonathan Franzen was being ...more

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Dec 30, 2015 Andrew Smith rated it liked it · review of another edition

There’s essentially three stories here:

- Two men’s individual struggle to write a book
- An older man’s love for a 15 year old girl
- The mystery surrounding the murder of the 15 year old girl

Yes, they’re all linked – but it sometimes feels like a hodgepodge of styles: maybe Jonathan Franzen meets Mills and Boon, meets Agatha Christie?

It’s long: over 600 pages in print and in excess of 20 hours of audio. I went the latter route, and was rewarded by a competent reading by Robert Slade. It’s also s There’s essentially three stories here:

- Two men’s individual struggle to write a book
- An older man’s love for a 15 year old girl
- The mystery surrounding the murder of the 15 year old girl

Yes, they’re all linked – but it sometimes feels like a hodgepodge of styles: maybe Jonathan Franzen meets Mills and Boon, meets Agatha Christie?

It’s long: over 600 pages in print and in excess of 20 hours of audio. I went the latter route, and was rewarded by a competent reading by Robert Slade. It’s also slow paced, sometimes agonisingly so.

Marcus Goldman travels to Somerset, the New Hampshire town of his college professor, Harry Quebert, to attempt to unlock something that will enable him to write a follow–up to his first, highly successful, book. Soon after, the body of a 15-year-old girl is discovered on Harry’s property along with a manuscript of his acclaimed novel, The Origin of Evil. The girl, Nolla Kellergan, had disappeared 33 years earlier. Harry is arrested and charged with Nolla’s abduction and murder and Marcus decides to carry out an investigation of his own, in the hope of clearing his mentor. He’s also persuaded to write a book about his investigation and accepts a multi-million-pound advance from his publisher.

This book was originally written in French and it might be that it’s lost something in translation. Certainly, for me the telling of the relationship between Harry and Nolla didn’t work at all. Harry is clearly an intelligent, articulate, good-looking man. Nolla is all child, with little to offer in terms of conversation or intellect. The verbal exchanges between the two are painful, in the extreme. We’re led to believe that Harry fell for her after a brief initial meeting at a beach and became obsessed by her thereafter. No – not for me. I know she’s portrayed as physically attractive, but even so…

Much better are the conversations between the two writers and those between Marcus Goldman and his publisher. These are sharp and amusing. And the telephone calls between Marcus and his overbearing Jewish mother are hilarious. I kept wishing there was more of this and less of Nolla and the other, equally dull, inhabitants of Somerset.

Then there’s the fact that nobody in Somerset seems to have been aware of the relationship between Harry and Nolla. Well, I’m not going to spoil it for potential readers by explaining why I feel strongly about this but there’s a give away clue running through the book that none of the locals seem to have worked out. Or have they? In the final section of the book it all suddenly switches up a few gears and it becomes apparent that quite a few of the large cast have been hiding secrets of their own. It’s full-on from this point to the finish with revelations heaped one upon the other, to the extent I half expected a gathering of the town population to be called so that the truth could be walked through in front of the full ensemble.

The whole thing is told in jumpy fashion, both in terms of the order of events and from whose perspective the story is being told at any given time. Though, actually this does work quite well once you get used to the style. But it’s certainly rambling and quite repetitive and I can’t help feeling that quite a bit of material could have been cut and a more finely crafted end result might have materialised.

If you can live with it’s flaws, then you’ll probably extract something worthwhile from it. I’m not sad I spent some time with this book, but I doubt it’ll be amongst the best I read this year. ...more

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Jul 09, 2014 Meg rated it did not like it

Spectacularly terrible! It's absolutely mind boggling to me that this was a runaway success and prize winner in France. From the very first pages you can tell that the dialogue is atrocious and the story cliched almost to the point of offensiveness, and it certainly doesn't get any better as the book unfolds. What on earth do people see in this book? It's not possible that it is *that* much better in the original French, right? ...more

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Mar 09, 2015 Denisse rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I've always had a weakness for mystery books. In this story every character matters, every subplot is related, and Joel Dicker creates one of the best modern dark novels. It is more than just a Who killed Nola Kellergan? and yet, that is the question that will travel with you through all the pages. A novel that will swallow you completely. A story about sickness, love, sadness, books and hidden pasts. A victory for the writer. Well done Dicker.

«Todo el mundo sabe escribir, pero no todo el mun ...more

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Jul 21, 2014 Nancy Martira rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I believe this is the worst book I've ever read; granted, I don't read a lot of bad books. If a book is terrible or if I'm just not enjoying it, I don't finish it - life is too short. So, why did I stick with it for nearly 600 pages? It's a mystery!

Mysteries that are more mysterious than the "mystery" at the heart of this book:

Is this a terrible novel or just a terrible English translation?

How did this become an international bestseller? No, really. Europe alone produces tons of excellent crime ...more

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Jun 25, 2016 Justin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I said it before and I'll say it again, or write it again, whatever, but this book is about 150 to 200 pages too long. It's too long, but my biggest issue with it isn't the ridiculously unnecessary length, it's the way the story is contrived and the way the characters interact that bugged me the most.

Is Dicker trying to write a modern version of Lolita? Is he going for a new spin on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Is he trying to write a sprawling murder mystery or is he trying to write a new l I said it before and I'll say it again, or write it again, whatever, but this book is about 150 to 200 pages too long. It's too long, but my biggest issue with it isn't the ridiculously unnecessary length, it's the way the story is contrived and the way the characters interact that bugged me the most.

Is Dicker trying to write a modern version of Lolita? Is he going for a new spin on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Is he trying to write a sprawling murder mystery or is he trying to write a new literary classic that rivals Nabokov, Roth, Joyce, whoever. Maybe I'm just out of touch with the formula that works in Europe since this won a bunch of awards over there. I don't know.

It started out so well. I liked it in the beginning. I thought it was cool that it danced between different time periods, different conversations, different characters past and present. I even liked the addition of Goldman's struggle to write the book within the book although that became uninteresting as the story played out. The structure was cool, the mystery unfolded pretty well, all that was fine. There was enough there to keep me reading.

Actually, it was kind of interesting that the book was hard to put down when I was reading it, but I could also put it down for days at a time and not miss it. It was hard to put down and hard to pick up at the same time. I don't know that I've had that experience from another book before, at least nothing that comes to mind right now. Tonight, I was determined to plow through it and get to the bottom of the mystery, and I did, and it was fine, but I ultimately didn't enjoy the book.

Some stuff that bugged me:
1. The way Marcus meets Harry was stupid. It wasn't enough to convince me that he cared so much about him later in life. It felt like a really uninspired way to build their relationship, and I didn't get enough from it to think Marcus should be this invested in his case.
2. The over-the-top, sappy, gushy romance. This is no Lolita, and maybe it thinks it is, but it isn't. Harry sounds like a fifteen year old who is in love with another fifteen year old. It feels so juvenile that I think my eyes might still be rolling... getting dizzy... oh boy....OK, I'm fine. I couldn't take the way Harry talked about Nola. It was stupid.
3. Good Lord, is every male in the story a pervert?
4. We figured it out! Yay! Nope, just kidding. Wait, we solved it. Nope, tricked ya! Hey, here's the suspect! Nope! The last third of the book felt like watching pro wrestling where the good guy keeps hitting his finishing move but the bad guy keeps kicking out just before the referee can count to three. Oh, so close! He almost had him! But then it's like the good guy was wrestling the wrong guy the whole time so the analogy eventually breaks down until... RKO OUTTA NOWHERE!
5. Did I mention the book is unnecessarily too long? I really think Dicker wanted to hit a home run with a literary masterpiece which is hard to do when you're trying to also write a page-turning murder mystery. I don't need a break from the action to talk about how hard it was to write the book for Marcus or Harry's advice on being a writer. Just keep peeling the onion for me.

This thing had some potential, and I did enjoy the story at times, but things just broke down for me once I got over the halfway point, and I couldn't make excuses for it anymore. I didn't understand the negative reviews in the beginning, but now... now they all make sense to me. ...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Naim Frewat rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-mystery, french-fiction

I have mixed feelings about this book. The fact that it won the "Prix de l'Académie Francaise" 2012 tips the scales towards disappointment. Then again if I was not intrigued by a crime book that won the said prize, I probably wouldn't have even picked it up.

It is a 660+ pages crime book; that made me quite hesitant to consider it, I just assume there would be unnecessary details and characters and boring repetitiveness. I was wrong about the first two.

The book's back cover states that it is a "r I have mixed feelings about this book. The fact that it won the "Prix de l'Académie Francaise" 2012 tips the scales towards disappointment. Then again if I was not intrigued by a crime book that won the said prize, I probably wouldn't have even picked it up.

It is a 660+ pages crime book; that made me quite hesitant to consider it, I just assume there would be unnecessary details and characters and boring repetitiveness. I was wrong about the first two.

The book's back cover states that it is a "reflection on America". I don't know how one understands such a phrase, nevertheless it felt to me a bit too much to qualify the book as such.

It is the story of a first-time successful young writer, Marcus Goldman, struggling to start his second work, who flies to the rescue of his mentor, the great Harry L. Quebert. Quebert is arrested and accused of the murder of the 15-year old Nola Kellergan, whose body (or the remains of it) is discovered 33 years (2008) after her disappearance (1975) from a small New Hampshire town, Aurora.

The book's front cover is a painting by Edward Hopper, one of my favorite painters, "Portrait of Orleans", and this book is certainly a portrait of Aurora. The inhabitants of Aurora seem typical of any small village; endowed with the natural virtues and vices and small-town life; they are friendly, nosy about each other's affairs, yet understanding, even respectful, of each other's privacy (if such a privacy exists in a small village), and as is the case in any small town, and especially those described in crime novels, newcomers almost always carry a deeper past with them.

Though the book is more action than description, yet the characters and the events occuring in the past are chronicled in such a way that one feels as if he was part of that fateful 1975 summer.

What felt a bit unsettling, in my opinion, was that the recalling of past events did not create in me this feeling of mystery one anxiously anticipates following the deep-digging in crime novels. I even felt that the paths that led our amateur detective-writer to snatch bits of truths about what happened from the dwellers of Aurora were too "programmed"; it was as if people awaited in their houses, or diners, or stores for the arrival of Marcus to recount him in precision what happened 33 years earlier. Over the lifespan of the book, I could count rare occasions in which characters seemed suspicious, or wary or cautious of the questions and deductions thrown-in by Marcus Goldman.

As the case is closed, every little twist of events is lucidly narrated by Goldman/Dicker so much that the imagination of the reader is left thirsty. This is because, throughout the book, Dicker retells the events from the perspective each and every actor directly or indirectly related to the crime, which generates so many overlapping narratives leaving no room for guesswork.

As the detective-writer finds himself entangled in the twists and turns of the book he is simultaneously writing, the reader is offered an entrance to the world of book publishing; there is a most revealing chapter of the book, chapter 6, that completely takes the charm out of the book publishing process. Nevertheless, it is revealed in such a way that I found it quite funny to read.

Overall, I enjoyed the book; it is an easy read of the simple lives of simple people in an average small town. I particularly appreciated that an author can still up an addictive crime novel without the bells and whistles of forensic science and technology, and rely on the simplicity of the characters to elucidate the mystery. ...more

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Feb 06, 2019 Luca Ambrosino rated it really liked it · review of another edition

ENGLISH (The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair) / ITALIANO

"Somerset Police. What’s your emergency?"
"Hello? My name is Deborah Cooper. I live on Side Creek Lane. I think I’ve just seen a man running after a girl in the woods."

The present: a promising novelist, Marcus Goldman, deals with his first writer's block. The past: a promising novelist, Harry Quebert, deals with a forbidden love with a 15-year-old girl named Nola. The crux of the matter: past and present are intertwined with the mysteri ...more

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Apr 28, 2018 Arybo ✨ rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-within-books, delittinelpassato, travellingaroundtheworld, read-in-2018, mystery-or-thriller, literary-fiction-storienarrate, read-my-shelves-challenge, author-d

🇬🇧 «Fly, you fools!»

Short comment:
an intriguing beginning, second fourth indigestible, third fourth unbearable, last fourth half unbearable, half acceptable. Characters stupid, egocentric, superficial, unbearable. Unacceptable romance, insubstantial literary story, mystery that resumes in the final. A great flop.

Longer comment (possible spoilers):
Each chapter begins with a "advice" that the famous Harry Quebert gives to his pupil Marcus during his life. Each advice occupies one page. Wa ...more

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Jul 04, 2014 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I feel like I have been on a long journey, and this book was a journey, through red herrings, changing accounts from many different people, through a poignant friendship and an illicit love. It was a puzzle, or a labyrinth or a maze, trying to find just the right clue that would unravel everything that had come before.

A book that is a book, about a murder, a young girl that seems to be all purity and light and a famous writer. Writer's and writers block, the 31 things one needs to know to write ...more

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Jul 18, 2017 Manny rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: french, older-men-younger-women, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, trash, linguistics-and-philosophy, not-the-whole-truth

MANNY: Hello and welcome back to our continuing coverage of Let's Trash Joël Dicker Week. With me in the studio, I have three experts who are going to offer us their diverse viewpoints on Dicker's controversial bestseller La Verité sur l'affaire Harry Quebert. I'm happy to introduce Manny and Manny--

MANNY: Good afternoon.

MANNY: Delighted to be here.

MANNY: --and, last but not least, Manny's girlfriend, who is going to try to introduce a note of sanity to the proceedings.

MANNY: I'm sorry, Not coul ...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Stephen Durrant rated it liked it · review of another edition

Joel Dicker is a 27-year-old Swiss writer whose "La Vérité sur L'Affaire Harry Quebert" has recently won two prestigious literary prizes and become a bestseller here in France. Its success, I think, results from being a complex and engrossing piece of detective fiction, involving novelists no less, and being set in America, where, according to the book jacket, Dicker has traveled extensively. The story concerns the discovery of the body of a fifteen-year old girl who disappeared thirty years ear Joel Dicker is a 27-year-old Swiss writer whose "La Vérité sur L'Affaire Harry Quebert" has recently won two prestigious literary prizes and become a bestseller here in France. Its success, I think, results from being a complex and engrossing piece of detective fiction, involving novelists no less, and being set in America, where, according to the book jacket, Dicker has traveled extensively. The story concerns the discovery of the body of a fifteen-year old girl who disappeared thirty years earlier under strange circumstances that point toward the likelihood she had been murdered. Items found with her body lead to the arrest of Harry Quebert, a famous novelist. One of Quebert's former students, Marcus Goldman, a budding novelist himself (novelists like to imagine that novelists are especially interesting), takes it upon himself to prove his teacher innocent. What follows is a 600-page roller coaster ride with more twists and turns than Steel Dragon 2000 and Millennium Force put together. The ride is so much fun that one almost forgets how implausible and problematic much of it is. The major implausibility (and there are others) is that the police would allow a young novelist into the very center of an on-going homicide investigation--indeed allow him virtually to lead that investigation. Now, I know that most detective fiction demands some "willing suspension of disbelief," to use Coleridge's term, but that too often becomes difficult in this particular case. Also, no one should be surprised when a writer describing what for him is a foreign country falls into comfortable stereotypes. After all, stereotypes, however much we might be inclined to deny it, frequently have some basis and it does give almost everyone a feeling of glee when they see behavior that confirms what they "always knew." Human enough. But several of the stereotypes in this novel go a bit far. Marcus' mother is such an overdrawn stereotype of the Jewish mother and Tamara Quinn of a ditsy small-town woman that we begin to feel we have wandered into a Monty Python movie rather than a work of gritty detective fiction. All that being said, one does read on . . . and on, almost compulsively, wondering how it will all end. And like with a good roller coaster ride, one comes away dizzy, mildly satisfied and not entirely sure one would do it again. ...more

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Sep 05, 2013 Daniele rated it it was ok · review of another edition

In spite of all the prizes it won, and its ambition to be something more, this book is just a simple mystery novel with only a single good plot twist and a teen-ish and retorical writing.
The story of the young writer investigating the murder of young Nola and her ties to "America's greatest writer" Harry Quebert is more a parade of cliched uninteresting characters - none excluded - and banal phrases than a look into America's society, and it becomes involuntarily ridiculous when we reach excerpt ...more

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Apr 03, 2016 Michelle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

There's few books out there that grab you from the first page and keep you there to the last page. There's even fewer books that actually make you feel like you're on a journey. It's a long book but I wish it was longer. I'm missing the characters already. This book has everything, it's a thriller, it has humour, sadness, character development, love, lies and deception. I want more!! ...more

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Jul 26, 2014 Ruth Merriam rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Can you give a book zero stars? I guess not. I picked this book up because it sounded like an interesting story (in the style of Steig Larson...not) and had been considered for a few literary prizes in France ( have the French gone crazy?). So I started to read. Until about page 200, I kept thinking that it would get better. Then I realized it must be a Master Class in how not to write. This book had it all, poor plot development, inconsistencies, unrealistic dialog, foreshadowing that would hav ...more

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Jun 13, 2014 Dem rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Dem by: August Book Club Read

Shelves: bookclub-reads

3.5 Stars

I had great difficulty in rating and reviewing this book as I would hate to discourage anyone from reading it and yet some people just wont like it and therefore I think you really have to decide for yourself if you want to really find out The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair.

This was a book club read and I am not a great lover of thrillers and especially ones that are over 600 pages long.
I started this book and to be honest I was caught up immediately in the plot and found myse ...more

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Aug 24, 2014 Kris rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2014-releases, mystery, france

Not good at all. Writing style is just terrible -- way too simplistic. Characters transparent, psychology not well developed.

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Mar 28, 2020 Barbara rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5 stars

This book, translated from the original French, is a complex mystery in which a famous sixty-something author named Harry Quebert is accused of murder. The murder charge turns out to be a golden opportunity for Harry's protégé, a 28-year-old writer named Marcus Goldman.

Marcus is a one-hit wonder who's under contract to deliver a second book SOON! Unfortunately Marcus has severe writer's block and can't manage to type a single word.....until he hits on the idea of proving that Harry is ...more

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May 03, 2014 Carol rated it liked it · review of another edition

At over 600 pages The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair is a commitment, a huge one for me, a slow reader. Was it worth my time in the end? Yes and no. To be fair let me give you my good before the bad. I have a friend who often uses The Good, The Bad, The Ugly in his comments. I'll skip The Ugly...

The Good
I liked Joel Dicker's passages about writers and writing and even readers. This is what saved the book for me rising it from 2 stars to 3. I loved the relationship between Harry, the teach At over 600 pages The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair is a commitment, a huge one for me, a slow reader. Was it worth my time in the end? Yes and no. To be fair let me give you my good before the bad. I have a friend who often uses The Good, The Bad, The Ugly in his comments. I'll skip The Ugly...

The Good
I liked Joel Dicker's passages about writers and writing and even readers. This is what saved the book for me rising it from 2 stars to 3. I loved the relationship between Harry, the teacher or mentor and Marcus, his student. I liked the lessons Harry imparted, what Marcus learned and the loyalty and trust the two exhibited even under the worst circumstances. I liked the boxing. I loved the setting and how the author was able to portray the feel of small town New England, its people and the fierceness of protecting their own.

The Bad
It was a huge sensation in its original language and has gone on to win all kinds of awards and accolades from readers. It even knocked Dan Brown's Inferno from the top of bestseller lists all over Europe">. The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair is considered to be a literary and clever but neither of these words works for me. It is long and complicated and high on unreliable narrators who just didn't engage me. Perhaps it was that it was a translation but I found the whole convoluted and snively in tone. Honestly, most character's dialog didn't ring true and at times I just wanted them, politely said, to be quiet. I did not think some actions, particularly of the female lead, realistic. Simply the story as taken from the publisher blurb is "disappearance of a 15-year-old New Hampshire girl and, 30 years later, a young American writer’s determination to clear his mentor’s name—and find the inspiration for his next bestseller>" It uses alternate time lines, well defined and I was never lost in the telling.

By book's end, I knew "the truth". Whatever outcome could have been determined in tighter plotting and less trying to twist the tale.

Only one of my GR friends has commented on The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair and we are far apart in our feelings about the book. I'm very open to hearing from others. ...more

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Jul 26, 2017 notgettingenough rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: will-be-regretted-on-my-deathbed, crime-fiction, books-i-have-lived-through

The truth about Joel Dicker

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
La Vérité sur l’Affaire Harry Quebert

I've now read 40 pages of this ludicrously long book. I've been reading it in French. These are the truths.

(1) Assuming that it should have been published in the first place, it is nonetheless perhaps hundreds of pages too long. Every single notion is repeated ad nauseum. There is not one idea stated once that isn't repeated a dozen times. In a row. Just like that. The book should be much shor ...more

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Jul 08, 2014 Kristy rated it did not like it

Be wary of over-hyped reviews, especially those littered with hyperboles.

They too sucked me in, like the cockroach I tried to gently euthanise by means of my kitchen sink.

I should of learnt my lesson.

This book is 50 shades of blah suffering from a serious case of 'lost in translation'.

Where do I begin?

Over hyped. Over promised. Under delivered.

Characters so one dimensional and mono-sibyllic they would feel right at home in a third grade reader.

Let's take a look at Harry Quebert for a moment. Th ...more

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Jun 26, 2014 Pattie rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I'm not sure where to begin in writing a review of this book. The advanced praise for "The Truth About ..." from other countries remains quite high and, indeed, this book took home 3 literary prizes in France. So, I took a chance on it. Well, that certainly turned out to be quite the mistake of 640 long, drawn out and often very poorly written pages. The author, Joel Dicker, was born in Switzerland, but spent summers in New England, so he should at least know something about Americans and their I'm not sure where to begin in writing a review of this book. The advanced praise for "The Truth About ..." from other countries remains quite high and, indeed, this book took home 3 literary prizes in France. So, I took a chance on it. Well, that certainly turned out to be quite the mistake of 640 long, drawn out and often very poorly written pages. The author, Joel Dicker, was born in Switzerland, but spent summers in New England, so he should at least know something about Americans and their proclivities. Being that the book is set mainly in a small town in New Hampshire, one would think the author would know something about the USA, beyond seascape and seagulls. Well, that one would be incorrect, for every single person in this book is a caricature, so grossly overdone as to be completely unrealistic. The main female character, Nola, who is 15 in the book, quite literally cries in every scene whether she is happy or sad. Come to think of it, so does the 24 year old waitress, Jenny, who acts like a 15 year old girl. There is absolutely nothing authentic about anyone. The dialog can only be described as riotously funny it is so clunky and poorly done. It is as if this entire novel was written by a young adult and never edited. The twists and turns are quite "complicated". Obviously I am being sarcastic, that's just one of the many over-used words thrown in whenever someone asks a question that would provide in-depth information that could help solve the mystery. The person responds, "It's complicated" and never provides information why or what that means. Many of the twists don't make a great deal of sense but just realize everything is a red herring and the kitchen sink is thrown in by the end. You can always see the attempts at humor well in advance as they are mallets over the head and eye rolling in approach and execution. And, with novels that are never fully fleshed out, the main character, Marcus "The Magnificent" Goldman, stumbles upon evidence time and again (and quite easily, I might add) that the police sargeant failed to catch during his investigation of the same case. Wow, just wow. Oh, and since when does an author of one bestseller get recognized literally everywhere he goes?? I'm not sure I would recognize many bestselling authors that I read quite regularly if I bumped into them in a diner, much less saw them in a local library. But, I digress. Strangely enough, I think when he describes a setting, Dicker actually uses some decent turns of phrase and shows that he has talent for writing somewhere inside of him. It's ironic, really, since the entire book is about an author with writer's block trying to become a great writer and find his true self, while, of course, solving a mystery, having his life threatened, dealing with fires being set, having an additional murder pop up, red herrings pop in and out, ... Well, you get the picture. Anyway, Dicker needs to go back to the drawing board but with the success he is receiving from other countries, especially France for this head-scratching book, I doubt he will do so. What a shame. ...more

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Jun 14, 2014 Mary rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This was an unfortunate waste of my time. The premise was interesting and the book has won prizes and (inexplicably) garnered mainly favorable critical reviews, which was why I started reading it. The characters, however, are such blatant stereotypes (The Jewish Mother! The Small-town Harpy! The Bad-tempered Policeman! The Money-grubbing Publisher!) that I really didn't care what happened to any of them. And however much time Dicker spent in America while growing up, it obviously wasn't enough-- ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Compañeros de lec...: La verdad sobre el caso Harry Quebert de Joël Dicker	9	60	Nov 29, 2020 04:35PM
Book translations - how do they change the book?	11	138	Jun 06, 2019 05:47AM
What's the Name o...: SOLVED. fiction, mystery, writer in a beach-y new england town [s]	5	92	Feb 05, 2019 05:45AM
Club literario: 9ª lectura: LA VERDAD SOBRE EL CASO HARRY QUEBERT (13.08.2018-07.10.2018)	61	104	Dec 22, 2018 10:33AM
Club de lectura p...: [JUL/SEP 2018] La verdad sobre el caso Harry Quebert	7	84	May 28, 2018 09:00AM
MidCoast Librarie...: The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair	12	58	Nov 08, 2017 05:56PM

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About Joël Dicker

Joël Dicker

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Joël Dicker was born in 1985 in Geneva, Switzerland, where he studied law. He spent childhood summers in New England, particularly in Stonington and Bar Harbor, Maine. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair won three French literary prizes, including the Grand Prix du Roman from the Académie Française, and was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt. Dicker lives in Geneva.