Ten years after the stroke of genius that made him known
, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
, the Swiss novelist Joël Dicker is making his literary business profitable: his books belong entirely to him, and his publishing house starts by not publishing than him.
The Alaska Sanders Affair
, his sixth novel, is the first novelty of Rosie & Wolfe editions, published in Switzerland on March 3, to be published in France on Thursday.
Read alsoJoël Dicker leaves De Fallois and creates his own publishing house
Behind this house in Geneva, the project of a successful writer: Joël Dicker in person.
At this stage, only one author in the catalog, and six titles: five reissues, including that of the famous detective novel of 2012 which launched it, and this novelty which, warns the banner, is the sequel to
Harry Quebert
.
In the new entrepreneur, we feel a mixture of methodical ambition, which made him set up this project with every chance of succeeding, and instinctive action.
His tortuous intrigues, for example, he does not conceive of them from A to Z before embarking on writing, he explains to AFP, on the occasion of the promotion in Paris, at no charge, of
The Alaska Sanders Affair
.
A science of rebound
"I don't have a plan at all. And that's what I like. I'm not saying that as a feat, no, that's what excites me, to ask myself: what's going to happen?
, he says.
The fans, and there are many of them, will find their way around easily.
Writer Marcus Goldman and police officer Perry Gahalowood team up again to flush out the real culprit of an old case that, in New Hampshire, was thought to be solved a long time ago.
Same provincial atmosphere, same back and forth between past and present, same science of rebound as in
Harry Quebert
and its five million copies sold around the world, record for a French-speaking novel of the 2010s.
For the first critics of
The Alaska Sanders Affair,
Joël Dicker is still overflowing with good ideas.
“A tsunami of twists and turns, a Himalaya of suspense, an Everest of emotion
,” according to RTL radio.
"It is impossible to let go of the new Joël Dicker (...) An exciting adventure"
, considers the daily Le Parisien.
Other readers think that the vein is beginning to run out, and that Rosie & Wolfe editions will never have the same requirements as the publisher who launched it, Bernard de Fallois.
"
It's not self-publishing
"
The interested party denies: he is always corrected with the same acuity.
He took the two people who edited it since the death of Bernard de Fallois
in 2018 on the adventure .
magnificent.
I have a structure with people who take care of that (...).
It's not self-publishing: self-publishing is when you do everything, all by yourself,”
he insists.
The model was to be invented when Joël Dicker announced the creation of his house a year ago.
Rosie & Wolfe has chosen to publish, from 2023, translations of its founder's favourites.
French speakers ?
Later, possibly.
The writer has no intention of integrating into the Parisian publishing world, nor of stealing the next phenomenal writer from it, to hunt literary prizes.
“Perhaps being based in Geneva frees me from a lot of codes that I don't know well,
he concludes.
This allows me to set up a lot of things that I couldn't afford in Paris, because I would have the look of those who say: be careful, we've never done it like that
.