Harare Review of Books

391 pages.

First published in translation in 2021.

This review first appeared in The Sunday Long Read.

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A Paris-New York flight hits unexpected turbulence, and, upon emerging from the storm, is forced to land at a military base. After a slow start, we learn why: the turbulence was an Event.

Among the passengers are a contract killer, a musician, a lawyer, a writer, an architect, a film editor, and a young girl. They are living ordinary and extraordinary lives before the Event. Part thriller and mostly speculative fiction, Le Tellier’s book raises the question: if we had doppelgängers, what would that mean, personally and existentially?

A bestseller in France, and winner of the Prix Goncourt, The Anomaly was released in English in November 2021. While overwritten, somewhat snarkily humorous, and rather full of overt philosophical musing, the story at the heart of the novel is entertaining, and the questions thought-provoking.