Non-fiction – paperback; Vintage Editions; 144 pages; 2020. Translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin.
This is my fourth Patrick Modiano book in two months. I love his simple prose style, his themes — memory, history, identity, coincidence — and his Parisian settings. Which is probably why I keep returning to his work.
But The Search Warrant, first published in 1996, is a little different to other Modiano titles I have read: this one is non-fiction. Yet it contains similar themes to his fiction.
The almost repetitive nature of his craft, in which he investigates and interrogates facts, often doing highly manual research, is a technique he also employs in his novels. Even how he traces multiple timelines, layering them upon each other to explore coincidences and a sense of history repeating, is present in this work, too.
Search for a missing schoolgirl
The book is based on a simple premise: what was the fate of Dora Bruder, a teenage schoolgirl listed as missing in the December 1941 issue of the (now defunct) French newspaper Paris-soir?
In December 1988, after reading the announcement of the search for Dora […] I had thought about it incessantly for months. The precision of certain details haunted me: ’41 Boulevard Ornano, 1.55m, oval-shaped face, grey-brown eyes, grey sports jacket, maroon pullover, navy-blue skirt and hat, brown gym shoes’. […] It seemed impossible to me that I should ever find the faintest trace of Dora Bruder.
It takes Modiano many years before he dares to follow his instincts. He writes a novel, Honeymoon, first, which is a fictionalised account of what might have happened, and it is during this exercise that he feels he might have stumbled upon a kernel of truth.
To help tell Dora’s story, Modiano blends his own personal history and reminiscences into the narrative and walks the streets of Paris, looking to find the locations and buildings that are significant to Dora’s life.
And he recalls his father’s experiences, living in Paris under German Occupation in the 1940s, to draw comparisons with what Dora might have lived through during such a horrific time in history.
I can hardly believe this is the city where Dora lived with her parents, where my father lived when he was twenty years younger than I am now. I feel as if I am alone in making the link between Paris then and Paris now, alone in remembering all these details. There are moments when the link is stretched to breaking point, and other evenings when the city of yesterday appears to me in fugitive gleams behind that of today.
What he discovers is relatively predictable, but nonetheless shocking, and I’ll refrain from outlining it here and thereby spoiling the plot.
Rescuing from history
The Search Warrant is essentially narrative non-fiction that blends reportage with investigative journalism and memoir. It’s told in a meandering, highly personal style, in short, beautifully descriptive chapters.
But Modiano never lets us forget the purpose of his story — a chance to rescue a teenage girl from the sad oblivion of history, to give us a punch-in-the-stomach reminder of what happens when we “other” people and treat them as less than human.
His painstaking investigation does not offer up a happy ending but it is a stark and powerful reminder that we should all be mindful of history repeating.
The city was deserted, as if to mark Dora’s absence. […] I walk through empty streets. For me, they are always empty, even at dusk, during the rush hour, when the crowds are hurrying towards the mouth of the métro. I think of her in spite of myself, sensing an echo of her presence in this neighbourhood or that.
This is my 5th book for #20BooksOfSummer 2023. I purchased it in Readings Hawthorn when I went to Melbourne for a long weekend back in March this year.