Assassination! July 14

by Ben Abro, James D. Le Sueur (Foreword by)

Overview

July 14. One of Europe's most sinister terrorist organizations hatches a brilliant plan to assassinate the feared and powerful leader of France, President Charles de Gaulle. Max Palk, an extraordinarily talented British secret agent, is summoned to Paris to hunt down the assassins before it is too late. Ensnared in a terrifying web of doublecross and death, Palk races against the clock to outmaneuver, outshoot, and outthink his increasingly desperate foes.

A decade before The Day of the Jackal appeared, Ben Abro's Assassination! July 14 became an international sensation, thanks to its sizzling plot, an ingenious, intellectual hero, and a realistic depiction of France's volatile political scene in the 1960s. In fact, the novel proved too real, provoking outrage and a lawsuit that shut down its publication. For the first time in decades, this gripping, underground thriller is again widely available. The equally riveting story behind the novel and the controversy it spawned are carefully explained in an informative essay by James D. Le Sueur. Drawing upon interviews with the authors, court transcripts, and recent evidence and scholarship, Le Sueur examines how an item of popular culture could have had such national and international repercussions.

Ben Abro is the pseudonym of Robert Silman and Ian Young, who were students of philosophy under Jean-François Lyotard at the Sorbonne in the early 1960s. James D. Le Sueur is an associate professor of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics during the Decolonization of Algeria, Second Edition (Nebraska 2005). He is the editor of Mouloud Feraoun's Journal, 1955-1962: Reflections on the French-Algerian War and a contributor to Henri Alleg's The Question, both available in Bison Books editions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803259393
Publisher:	UNP - Bison Books
Publication date:	04/01/2001
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Ben Abro is the pseudonym of Robert Silman and Ian Young, who were students of philosophy under Jean-François Lyotard at the Sorbonne in the early 1960s. James D. Le Sueur is an associate professor of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics during the Decolonization of Algeria, Second Edition (Nebraska 2005). He is the editor of Mouloud Feraoun’s Journal, 1955–1962: Reflections on the French-Algerian Warand a contributor to Henri Alleg's The Question, both available in Bison Books editions.

Editorial Reviews

"Professor James LeSueur . . . does not specialize in spy novels of the 1960s. His domain is more the history of intellectuals. One day, however, in Paris, Pierre Vidal-Naquet told him about an old memory of a forgotten affair: the pulping of an English spy novel, in 1963, following a lawsuit filed by Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle’s complaint was that his role in the novel was that of a villain, a scheming fascist. Le Sueur did some research, tracked down the authors, read their files. And he just brought that little novel back into print in the U.S.: Assassination! July14. In a long, passionate historical essay, Le Sueur tells the story of the trial. And this second part of the book is a more solid and captivating thriller than the slight novel which precedes it. Not only does the essay cast new light on Jacques Soustelle, one of the most enigmatic personages of the postwar period, it also illuminates in formidable fashion the political strife of the time, its pure violence."—Pascal Riché, Libération

Libération - Pascal Riché

"James D. Le Sueur provides a historical essay appended to the novel wherein he describes the political climate at the time of the efforts to kill de Gaulle, and then a very vivid description of the defamation trial. Taken together, the novel and Le Sueur’s essay provide a riveting recreation of a moment in French history where the dramatic and the ridiculous vied for equal attention."—William Cloonan, South Atlantic Review

South Atlantic Review - William Cloonan

"An unusual political thriller, first published almost 40 years ago, now looks like a revealing document of France’s deepest postwar crisis . . . You could also read Assassination! for pleasures of a less-erudite kind, summed up by three simple words: grenade-launching dogs."—Scott McLemee, Chronicle of Higher Education

Chronicle of Higher Education - Scott McLemee

"An unusual political thriller, first published almost 40 years ago, now looks like a revealing document of France’s deepest postwar crisis . . . You could also read Assassination! for pleasures of a less-erudite kind, summed up by three simple words: grenade-launching dogs."—Scott McLemee, Chronicle of Higher Education

— Scott McLemee

Chronicle of Higher Education

"Professor James LeSueur . . . does not specialize in spy novels of the 1960s. His domain is more the history of intellectuals. One day, however, in Paris, Pierre Vidal-Naquet told him about an old memory of a forgotten affair: the pulping of an English spy novel, in 1963, following a lawsuit filed by Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle’s complaint was that his role in the novel was that of a villain, a scheming fascist. Le Sueur did some research, tracked down the authors, read their files. And he just brought that little novel back into print in the U.S.: Assassination! July14. In a long, passionate historical essay, Le Sueur tells the story of the trial. And this second part of the book is a more solid and captivating thriller than the slight novel which precedes it. Not only does the essay cast new light on Jacques Soustelle, one of the most enigmatic personages of the postwar period, it also illuminates in formidable fashion the political strife of the time, its pure violence."—Pascal Riché, Libération

— Pascal Rich�

Libération

"James D. Le Sueur provides a historical essay appended to the novel wherein he describes the political climate at the time of the efforts to kill de Gaulle, and then a very vivid description of the defamation trial. Taken together, the novel and Le Sueur’s essay provide a riveting recreation of a moment in French history where the dramatic and the ridiculous vied for equal attention."—William Cloonan, South Atlantic Review

— William Cloonan

South Atlantic Review

"Professor James LeSueur . . . does not specialize in spy novels of the 1960s. His domain is more the history of intellectuals. One day, however, in Paris, Pierre Vidal-Naquet told him about an old memory of a forgotten affair: the pulping of an English spy novel, in 1963, following a lawsuit filed by Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle’s complaint was that his role in the novel was that of a villain, a scheming fascist. Le Sueur did some research, tracked down the authors, read their files. And he just brought that little novel back into print in the U.S.: Assassination! July14. In a long, passionate historical essay, Le Sueur tells the story of the trial. And this second part of the book is a more solid and captivating thriller than the slight novel which precedes it. Not only does the essay cast new light on Jacques Soustelle, one of the most enigmatic personages of the postwar period, it also illuminates in formidable fashion the political strife of the time, its pure violence."

—Pascal Riché, Libération

Liberation

INTERNATIONAL MEN OF MYSTERY: By the early 1960's, Jacques Soustelle was known for two things. One was his scholarly eminence; the anthropologist was France's leading authority on Aztec civilization. The other was a very public disagreement with his old friend Charles de Gaulle over independence for Algeria (which M. Soustelle opposed vehemently). So when a spy novel portrayed an intellectual named Soustelle plotting to assassinate the French president, it was decidedly more than a coincidence-particularly since the character was shown making jokes about human sacrifice.

M. Soustelle filed a libel suit against the novel's publisher, and won. In due course, the whole unpleasant matter was forgotten-until now. M. Soustelle is a pivotal figure in a forthcoming book, Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics During the Decolonization of Algeria (University of Pennsylvania Press, April), by James D. LeSueur, who teaches history at the University of LaVerne, in California. A political man as well as a scholar, M. Soustelle was Algeria's last governor general under the colonial regime. But the anthropologist, who died in 1990, has an even bigger part in a novel rediscovered by Mr. LeSueur that the University of Nebraska Press will reissue in April, with his extensive afterword: Assassination! July 14 by Ben Abro.

An unusual political thriller, first published almost 40 years ago, now looks like a revealing document of France's deepest postwar crisis. It's a very odd story, all around.

* * *

Ben Abro was actually the pseudonym of two British graduate students, Robert Silman and Ian Young (who both have since gone on to distinguished medical careers). They were attending the Sorbonne during a campaign of terror against Algerian nationalists and their sympathizers conducted by the Secret Army Organization (O.A.S.), a right-wing group within the French military. The O.A.S. had denounced President de Gaulle for treason, and had made several attempts on his life by 1962, when Mr. Silman and Mr. Young wrote their novel. But the paramilitary was only half their inspiration.

The book was also a spoof on James Bond. Its hero, Max Palk, is a middle-aged British accountant with asthma and dandruff. He survives an encounter with the fiendish M. Soustelle only through superior knowledge of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Second Edition)—then escapes the clutches of the O.A.S. following a series of Socratic dialogues with his guard. It may be worth noting that Silman and Young had studied with a philosopher named Jean-Francois Lyotard- later notorious for such books as Libidinal Economy and The Postmodern Condition, in which high theory and low sarcasm were perfectly blended.

Jacques Soustelle was certainly not amused: The novel portrays him as part of a fascist attempt at a coup d'etat. In his protracted legal case against the book's British publisher throughout the late 1960's-chronicled in detail by Mr. LeSueur in the new edition-the anthropologist claimed never to have been a member of the O.A.S., much less to have plotted de Gaulle's execution. Figures from French political and intellectual life gave depositions on both sides of the case.

While M. Soustelle prevailed in court, the evidence strongly suggests that Assassination! may have been fairly accurate about his role in the paramilitary movement. He could well have been the O.A.S.'s candidate for president (once the messy preparations were complete).

"There is very little scholarship on the O.A.S.," says Mr. LeSueur, "mainly because the French State is reluctant to release anything. Most of the documents are in archives that will be closed for the next hundred years. With the court papers, you have a body of testimony from people involved in all sides, using the novel to make points about what really happened. It's a great way to look at recent history."

You could also read Assassination! for pleasures of a less-erudite kind, summed up by three simple words: grenade-launching dogs.

— The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Scott McLemee

James D. Le Sueur provides a historical essay appended to the novel wherein he describes the political climate at the time of the efforts to kill de Gaulle, and then a very vivid description of the defamation trial. Taken together, the novel and Le Sueur's essay provide a riveting recreation of a moment in French history where the dramatic and the ridiculous vied for equal attention.
— South Atlantic Review

William Cloonan

Editor James D. Le Sueur, a historian of modern France, resurrects this so-so thriller as grist for his scholarly mill. He makes an elaborate (and tediously long) case for the importance of the work, first published in 1963 by two English students studying in Paris, Robert Silman and Ian Young. Their alias (Ben Abro) partly came about because they knew just how libelous their novel was: they mixed enough fact and fiction to accuse a prominent former prime minister of participating in a plot to assassinate de Gaulle. Though few readers at the time understood how much was real and how much wasn't, a former Resistance hero, Jacques Soustelle, was named in the book as a key player, a liberal who became a rabid defender of French colonialism in Algiers, and a mortal enemy of his former ally—de Gaulle. Soustelle sued in English court (LeSueur quotes endlessly from these transcripts in his essay), but eventually abandoned the action. The significance of Assassination! July 14 is inflated both as history and fiction. True, it does predate the more famous version of a similar plot, Day of the Jackal, by eight years, but so what? Forsyth's potboiler is hardly a benchmark in literary history; nor do Silman and Young seriously revise the espionage genre in any meaningful way, despite the editor's silly claims. At best, a historical curiosity, and even then, LeSueur still doesn't sort out fact from fiction.

Kirkus Reviews