Colonial Tale

Tropic Moon 

by Georges Simenon

“My books are a subject of much discussion. They pour from shelves onto tables, chairs and the floor, and Chaz observes that I haven’t read many of them and I never will. You just never know. One day I may — need is the word I use — to read Finnegans Wake, the Icelandic sagas, Churchill’s history of the Second World War, the complete Tintin in French, 47 novels by Simenon, and By Love Possessed.”  ― Roger Ebert

Tropic Moon, one of Georges Simenon's "Romans durs," or hard novels, is his first book set outside of Europe. The story of Tropic Moon is not only harsh on the protagonist but also on the French colonial system as a whole—that is, it is extremely harsh on the French colonialists who lived in Africa. This was a slightly different experience for me compared to Simenon's detective novels.