Sarah Lotz’s Pompidou Posse is not a horror book. Though it does feature some out-of-this-world characters, it is not a science fiction book either. What it is, though, is the debut novel of an author we published back in SW01. Not just any author, but the winner of our launch issue Short Story Competition, The Perfect Man, (available to read in its entirety at SomethingWicked.co.za). And since it happens to be damn good, I thought I would review it.

Pompidou Posse is the story of two 18 year-old girls who decide to run away to Paris in the mid-eighties and end up living on the streets as a clochard (tramp). It would be almost unbelievable, if it didn’t feel so true. It is altogether a harrowing, painful and hysterical book with characters that leap off the page and stink up your room.

Vicki and Sage are two runaways who decide to bugger off out of England and head for Paris to find a job. Things don’t quite go as they planned and, after meeting one or two dodgy characters, they end up part of the Pompidou Posse, a group of homeless people who make their living by entertaining, begging and stealing in the streets of Paris. Throughout all their harrowing, petrifying and sometimes just plain ghastly experiences, they manage to get by with a fierce loyalty to one another and, above all, a sense of humour.

The humour is what discerns this novel from others of its genre. At no point is the book even remotely apologetic or preachy. Lotz leaves her reader in no doubt that this is by no means the nicest way to spend your time in Paris. At the same time, though, she manages to convey an innocence and a sense of adventure that only the very brave or the extremely stupid could survive.

Over the course of the story, I often found myself wondering if I was that stupid at 18, to fall for such obvious cons, to end up in as a dire a situation as the two protagonists do. As an author in her mid-thirties, Lotz’s strength shines through in the believable characterisation of the teenage mind, how it works, (or, as is often the case, doesn’t work), the plausibility of situations and above all, humour.

If you’ve read her award-winning story, The Perfect Man, you’ll know what I’m talking about. This is an author who, no matter how bleak the subject matter, no matter how dark, always manages to find the humour in the situation and feed it through to the reader. From the first page, the reader feels they’re in good hands with Lotz, hands that will gently lead you to the darkest part of the woods and introduce you to her close friend, the boogieman, before returning you to your own world, your eyes a little wider, your chest bruised with paroxysms of laughter as much as the ravages of the journey.