Dirty Snow

Where is the humanity of being the worst person, in the worst place, at the worst time, doing the worst things? Dirty Snow (aka: The Snow is Dirty) by Georges Simenon is a bleak, ugly experience by design. Frank is a 19-year-old piece of human trash who lives in some unnamed European city devoid of beauty. It is the middle of some kind of fascist occupation, wherein murder, human trafficking, and weapon sales go ignored while accidentally passing off a counterfeit bill can result in long-term imprisonment or torture.

For approximately 200 pages we are at Frank's side, and in his head. He commits some low-level and high-level crimes against humanity, and tromps through the snow glowering at every person who crosses his path. And yet, something about the reading experience aligns with what we know of humanity. Dirty Snow was written in 1946, with Simenon only having left Occupied France the year before – just before the War ended. One can only imagine what it would be like to immediately set out to write a crime novel set in a version of the city only just vacated which was occupied by a Fascist regime. There's something true, nightmarish, and compelling about Simenon's Dirty Snow.