Pedigree

Having just finished the first version of this text, Simenon, in February 1941, sent the typescript as usual to his friend and critic André Gide. Gide proved more reserved than he had been about Les Inconnus dans la maison, which he considered the author’s masterpiece. In August 1942, Gide received the final version, which he judged better, but he regretted the sort of “self-indulgence” that pervades Pedigree.

The book was not published at the time, the war making matters worse. But did Simenon not need an outlet? “When I wrote Pedigree,” he later said, “I had another reason for writing it, and above all a reason to sigh with relief when I finished it. I told myself: I am done with all these people! Now that I have given them flesh and blood in a book, they will no longer burden me, and I will be able to write about new characters.”