Introducing an Unsympathetic Character

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Wednesday, March 21, 2007
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Simenon does something fascinating in the opening chapter of Le Fiancailles de M. Hire (1933) -- recently released by NYRB with the title The Engagement. Instead getting inside the central character's head, he starts off with the concierge in Mr. Hire's building. She delivers some mail to his apartment, sees something suspicious, and then hunts down one of the detectives who've been conducting surveillance ever since a dead woman was found in a nearby lot. The concierge and the policeman work each other up, and then Mr. Hire leaves the building, only to be followed by a second detective, who shadows him and then compares notes with the first.

In other words, before we meet Mr. Hire as a character, we're introduced to him as a suspect.

Hire is a quiet recluse. Maybe he's not the sort of guy to stir the imagination, but this curious way of introducing him changes that. The suspicions about him add a layer of mystery, insuring that the reader pays close attention to every little thing he does. It's an clever approach to the problem of introducing an unsympathetic character.