(#gifted @gallicbooks) I’m happy to say that after the disaster of Houellebecq, Serge Joncour restored some of my faith in contemporary French literature! Wild Dog is a blend of historical fiction and modern day life, reflecting on the need to escape the hustle and bustle of the everyday, bombarded by media and content, with also a little thriller element in there. It sounds weird, but it works!

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The historical fiction chapters (they alternate all the way through) are set during the First World War, but before you roll your eyes and sigh ‘ANOTHER war story’, just LISTEN. This one has LIONS! It also focuses on those that the war left behind in the villages while the men eligible to fight were called up to the front.  This is a perspective not often explored in war literature, and I appreciated the focus on the women who had to step up to work in the fields and factories, as well as those men left behind because of disability or old age.

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In the present day storyline, a middle aged couple escape to the same little French village in an effort to disconnect from modern society for a few weeks. I loved the way the two storylines merged, in a way mimicking each other - is this village cursed in some way, doomed to play out the same tragic events over and over, 100 years apart? The chapters are very short, flip flopping between 1914 and 2017, always keeping you on your toes, perfect for if you’re finding your attention span wandering these days!

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It’s another team effort translation, with Polly Mackintosh and Jane Aitken rendering Joncour’s French into English. They do a beautiful job, especially with the nature descriptions that abound in this novel. If this doesn’t make you want to move to a tiny French village in the hills, I don’t know what will. The story does drag its feet a little in the third quarter, but I was still captivated by both storylines well enough to not mind.

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I feel like there’s so much more I haven’t touched on in this review, from mobile phone addiction to to marriage problems to vegetarianism... There’s a lot to unpack here! I’d definitely recommend this one for a literary historical thriller!