Jean-Michel Genassez, “The Irredeemable Optimists Club”

Jean-Michel Genasseur recently made a name for himself as a contemporary novelist, but he immediately entered the lists of intellectual prose. His books have won several literary prizes, including the Goncourt Prize, have been translated into dozens of languages and are read worldwide.

About the author
A French novelist born in Algeria, Genassez made his debut in literature at a mature age – he was 59 when he published his first novel, The Irredeemable Optimists Club, in 2009.

The future writer received a law degree, after university he practiced law for 6 years, but in the 1980s he changed career direction and began to earn money by writing scripts for television series. In parallel with this occupation, Genascia began working on a novel. His first successful experience inspired him to write several more books:

• “A Waltz of Trees and Skies” about Van Gogh’s life;
• “On the Influence of David Bowie on the Fates of Young Creatures.”
• “The Amazing Life of Ernesto Che;
• “Cheat Death.
• “The Irredeemable Optimists Club” summary.

Paris, 1960s. The main character is a twelve-year-old named Michel, who is passionate about reading and photography. He often does not find common ground with his parents, classmates, sometimes failing at school, but he has a refuge where he can hide from the world around him.

This refuge is the back room of a cafe where immigrants from the communist camp, existentialists, Jean-Paul Sartre himself and other colorful characters of the 1960s era gather. Michel is very well-read and understands a lot, but classical literature doesn’t teach him what he encounters when he listens to adults talk. Over coffee and chess, these extraordinary people discuss world politics, stories from their lives, help each other as much as they can, and wait for their fate to be decided.

It is difficult for a teenager and a native Parisian to understand nostalgia, homesickness, hostility to the regime, but sincere affection for the country. So often human actions and the politics of states go against lofty ideas! What Michel does not understand, but simply accepts as it is and remembers, accumulating in the memory of the life experiences of the people he met.

The novel is constructed of small chapter-histories, told on behalf of the visitors to the Club of incorrigible optimists, as they called themselves. The content confirms the title: there is no gloomy sadness, rather a patchwork of short sketches, diverse as life itself.

The author pays sufficient attention and the fate of Michel, through his relatives and friends shows the problems faced by young people in France in the 1960s, for example, sending conscripts to suppress the uprising in Algeria.

Listening to “The Irredeemable Optimists Club” online is like accidentally switching to a radio station that presents news from 50 to 60 years ago. Jean-Michel Genassia has done a thorough archival job and recreated the era very closely to historical reality. This is an amazing book with a fascinating plot and authenticity of narration at the highest level.

The historical background of the novel

In an interview about his first book, the author admitted that he was a child in the 1960s and was not directly affected by this rebellious time of philosophical discussions in cafes and student riots. In the novel, he expressed his thoughts about the grandiose utopias of the twentieth century, which excited his imagination for many years – socialism and communism. Why didn’t the grand experiment work? Where did the error crept into ideal reasoning? He puts his opinions on this matter into the mouths of refugee characters from the USSR.

The writer paid much attention to the fate of emigrants in a foreign country, the search for their own path and place in a new life.

The timeline of the Club of the Incorrigible Optimists ends before the protests in Paris in May 1968. These events are too ambiguously assessed in France, and Genassia did not want to add new contradictory lines to the narrative.

The novel contains real characters, such as Jean-Paul Sartre. The episode with him is partly autobiographical, since being a boy at the age of the protagonist, the writer visited the same cafe with Sartre. Little Jean-Michel played foosball there, and the founder of existentialism talked about politics and philosophy.