Inspired by the real-life tragedy in November 2021 when 27 migrants drowned trying to cross the English Channel from France, French philosopher and writer Vincent Delecroix's slim and searing novel Small Boat limns the failings of conscience and complacency in the face of human suffering. Told mostly from the viewpoint of the French radio operator who falsely assured the migrants during their distress calls that help was coming, Delecroix imagines the thought process behind her callousness. Under investigation for negligence, the narrator is questioned by a policewoman who looks "exactly like me," a resemblance that repels her. She toggles between blaming the victims--"it really wasn't me that asked them to leave"--and expressing self-pity for being singled out for a problem created by societal inequity beyond her control. She notes that her job does not entail feeling sorry for anyone. "Empathy," she says, "is an idiotic luxury indulged in by people who do nothing."
The narrator's account is broken into two sections by a short passage in the middle of the novel that tells the story of the fateful night from the migrants' viewpoint. The language shifts in this section to an unadorned and unsparing description of slow horror as they drown, one by one, "without even noticing." As monstrous as the narrator seems, however, Delecroix avoids painting her as an easy villain. It is, rather, her all-too-human capacity for indifference and moral justification that is chilling. Aided here by Helen Stevenson's subtle, brilliant translation from the French, the timely, thoughtful, and unsettling Small Boat is a powerful and necessary read. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor