Interview with Stéphane Pajot

We’re used to you delving into bizarre topics around here, but this time your novel practically takes us into the realms of fantasy. What made you decide to go down this path?

It arose from a project for a fantasy film taking place around the Grand-Lieu Lake. The author asked me to do an adaptation of it. After searching around a little, the idea of a thriller seemed to be the obvious choice. Dropping acid (by the hero of this story) came to me as a means of presenting a hallucinatory world.

Do you think that you have managed to make this story your own?

I “thrillered” it. The scenario of the film, which is still at the initial writing stage, probably won’t follow the rules of a thriller, but rather the fantasy genre. It’s as if we’ve done things the wrong way round. This thriller should really be an adaptation from the film, rather than the contrary.

You are now under the aegis of the well-known literary publisher, L’Atalante. Does this change your writing practice?

Actually it’s happened to me several times to be working hard on a thriller and the editor slating me about what I had written. This was the case for the end of Poulpe Aztèques Freaks. I had to rewrite the denouement. But yes, this time I was aware of my mannerisms and those terrible old die-hard habits. I really appreciate the way an editor works. It’s nice to work alongside someone. I’ll be a bit more careful before handing in my copy, that’s for sure.

Ouest-France

Stephane Pajot serves us up an exuberantly entertaining novel. There is a touch of the thriller about it and it is a story of dictatorship with allusions to the Nazis and the Resistance. There is a hint of fantasy, naturalism, a hymn to nature, diversity and differentiation and a guide to the Grand-Lieu Lake and the Nantes region. All that in only 154 pages! A tale to be relished to prolong the enjoyment.

Le blog d'Yv

Echoes of Jules Verne.                  Marie-Christine Biet, Unidivers.fr

When you start reading a Stephane Pajot novel, you’ve got to expect the unexpected. And when he writes a novel which at times combines burlesque reality with fantasy, it becomes a veritable fireworks display.

Action suspense

And since we are in a Stephane Pajot novel, there are quaint characters swimming about in this story. They’re like barflies from one of Pierre Mac Orlan’s songs mingling with groups of Hippy frogs, marbled newts and other polydactyl amphibians. And what if revolution were simmering under the ripples? If Grand-Lieu was actually an Atlantis where spring rebellions of angry tree frogs were stirring up the mud? Stephane Pajot sexes up his batrachian thriller with fantasy and surrealism. Jump to it!

Frédérique Bréhaut, Presse Océan

Despite the mild craziness, the author is masterful in his delivery of a plot worthy of the most carefully constructed thriller. Short, to the point and energetic, I enjoyed it a lot – despite the bitter pill of the ending and some questions left hanging in the balance.

A l'ombre des nénuphars

We like the words, the stories, the spheres and the slightly off-the-wall adventures. Anomalie P. draws its inspiration from a film yet to be written, that can pay tribute to him in the future: “Frog City”.  The author, journalist Stephane Pajot, is the one most able to sum up the nature and content of his striking novel. The beginning of the story is classic. Through his apartment window one morning in May, as he is drinking his coffee, his eyes focussed on the Loire and a fisherman, Tristan witnesses a murder. A taker of Batraxil, a fashionable drug that he gets on the Darknet (a kind of private Internet network), he’s not sure that what he has just seen actually happened... Then other characters come on to the scene, all of them linked, and the story slides progressively into the supernatural. At first it’s a bit startling but then enthralling and we let ourselves go with the lyrically realistic ambiance and style. This is a breakneck journey where we meet talking frogs, elephants, people at a stag party, characters worn down by old demons and even amorous contract killers.

Emmanuel Rome, La Croix