The Theatre Critic Who Survived the Paris Massacre

Le Lambeau
by Philippe Lançon
Gallimard, 2018, 512 pages, 21 euros
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On Twelfth Night the Paris theatre critic went to a performance of Twelfth Night. In the darkness he wrote into his notebook the words of the clown Festin: “Nothing that is so, is so.” He was unfamiliar with the play and the director offered to send him a copy of his own translation, which the players had used. At home he watched a television interview with Michel Houellebecq, whose new book Soumission was to be published the following day. He slept between sheets which needed changing—he is very particular about bed sheets. Next morning, as you know, a third of his face was shot away.

The book Philippe Lançon (above) has written is called Le Lambeau—meaning a piece of ripped material, a scrap of flesh torn from a body, or the surgical flaps taken from one part of the body to restore another part. All three apply to Lançon, a survivor of the Charlie Hebdo massacre….