Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram

 

This is a tough book to write about and I would recommend it only to someone I know well. It deals with suicide ideation which will be a red flag for many. This short (135 pages) novella is compelling and beautifully, even lyrically, written. I can’t use the word “enjoy” to describe the reading experience but I do appreciate it.

Vicken is on the Montreal Metro to Saint Lawrence River where he plans to drown himself. He has battled depression and anxiety since adolescence and having only “The withering ember of dreams” left he decides this is the time and place to end things.

He falls asleep and wakes when the train reaches what he thinks is the terminus of the line and, indeed, it is a terminus, just not what he expects. At the top of the stairs he passes through a formidable turnstile gate that grants “permission to exit only”. He finds himself alone in a dull grey brutalist concrete station. There is no exit to an outbound train, only a labyrinth of halls. He meets a caustic and dismissive woman and together they explore. Unfortunately they aren’t together long.

Vicken finds himself “...denied a destination, caught in a transitional environment, a space between beginning and an end”. What is this place? My thought was that this is a form of purgatory, that Vicken could find a way out by sifting through his memories, searching for meaning, exploring what it means to be himself. Instead is alone, isolated from any community, experiencing an existential, often surreal horror. I took the labyrinthine halls as a metaphor for endless despair, no way out. Would Vicken have the courage to leave if presented with a possible exit or is he doomed to remain trapped within himself?

Coup de Grâce is a remarkable book that challenges the reader. This is the most difficult book I’ve read in a while. Read through to the; the author makes a stylistic shift that is pretty neat.