The great Swiss writer Jacques Chessex is dead at 75. He won the Goncourt Prize in 1973 for his novel "L'ogre" ("The Ogre"), a vivid analysis of a dead father's continued psychological dominance of the hero's life. Tortuous family relationships, especially those between parents and children, framed most of Chessex's work, including the novels "Les Yeux Jaunes" ("Yellow Eyes") and "L'Ardent Royaume" ("The Kingdom of Passion"), and affected his own life: his father committed suicide when Jacques was young. There's a longing and a loss in his work, and a sense of fate grimly going about its business, reminiscent of Maupassant, on whom he wrote a monograph, "Maupassant et les autres" ("Maupassant and the others"). Drink, and the solace of friendship, are powerful themes in his writing. His sense of place, too, recalls Maupassant, as well as others possessed of the genius loci, such as Thomas Hardy and Joyce. To read him is to know Switzerland, specifically the canton of Vaud on the northern and western edges of Lake Geneva, where the ancient peasant rituals of farming, church, family, and wine somehow still coexist with the modern world.  

I corresponded with him over a translation I did of a novella of his, "Copains Comme Cochons" ("Bosom Buddies"), the delightful story of two friends on a boisterous day-long cafe-crawl in a Swiss village. I'm not sure how good his English was, but he liked my rendition, and told me so, adding anecdotes and commentary to a series of letters I still have somewhere. He was generous, humorous, and helpful, and the wine stains on some of the letters attested to a shared congenial weakness. (If I can find that translation, I'll post it on this website.)

I was mistaken for him in a restaurant outside Geneva (glasses, paunch, handlebar mustache). Yes, I said, when the patron, a literature-loving innkeeper (not such a contradiction in terms in the French-speaking world) came over to shake my hand, I'm a writer, but alas, non monsieur, I'm not that writer. I'm nowhere near as good. Plus, I'm American. Never mind, he said, at least you know who he is. It's my round anyway.