Paul by Daisy Lafarge review: Lyrically told tale of a toxic relationship

Daisy Lafarge’s debut novel is published less than a year after her first full-length poetry collection, Life Without Air, which explored themes of eco-consciousness with lyrical style. She returns to those preoccupations here, in prose that was described as “faultless” by the judges of the Betty Trask Award (given to writers under 35), which she was awarded for Paul back in 2019.

Following a breakdown and an academic scandal in Paris, Frances signs up to the BénéBio website as an eco-farm volunteer, at the suggestion of her supervisor-slash-lover, A.B. She has her recovery planned out; from Paris, she’ll travel to the rural South of France, first spending a week at Noa Noa, before travelling across to the Maritime Alps to another farm. Her research project in Paris will be behind her, and she’ll have time to reclaim her sense of self before working out whether to return to academia.

Her host at Noa Noa, the titular Paul, is immediately a pull for Frances. He’s older, charismatic, worldly. He’s spent his life travelling, adventuring, and Frances is quickly swept up in his lifestyle. Her week at the farm coincides with an annual festival and is a confusing tangle of alliances and language, under the weight of her sudden crush. Her feelings are swiftly reciprocated, and Frances finds herself caught in an uneven relationship, echoing that of the one she’s left in Paris.

As the novel progresses, Frances’ grand plan for recuperation comes apart. The second volunteering gig doesn’t work out as expected, and Frances happily joins Paul on what becomes a kind of exhibition tour of his friends in the South of France. With the lack of stability, Frances suffers a slip back toward the state she found herself in in Paris, unsure of herself or their relationship, and the effort of speaking at points leaves her entirely voiceless.

Paul’s strength is in the insidiousness of its titular character, perfectly balanced by the malleability of its protagonist, and her willingness to identify herself through others’ eyes. Paul charms Frances, offering her a kind of life she’d not envisioned for herself, and then switches to cajoling her - throughout the novel, his nickname for her has been ‘coquine’, and after Frances has discovered that the real translation of the word is akin to calling her a tease, she confronts him. Paul calls over a waitress to translate the word ‘coquille’ (shell) for her, smugly triumphant. It’s these moments where Lafarge’s writing really shines, Paul’s grin is as bright as Frances’ anger, as vivid as the waitress’ bafflement. Language is such an important part of the novel; Frances’ own voice goes unheard, she’s left wrong-footed by mishearings, misspeakings, and gaslightings, and her naturally passive nature is bullied into actions she can’t speak up against.

Lafarge’s antagonist is loosely based on Paul Gauguin, transported from the late 1800s to the present day and the world of eco-farming. With this knowledge in mind, there are aspects of the story that will come as less of a surprise, though Paul’s controlling behaviour and constant admissions that he feels himself to be younger than he is are sinister suggestions even without Frances’ final realisations about him. Like Gauguin, Lafarge’s Paul has travelled between France and Tahiti, bringing back interesting ideas about ‘Westerners’ and mythologising a more liberated life in the South Pacific. Gauguin, of course, travelled to Tahiti later in his life, leaving his wife and five children in Paris and marrying at least three child-bride ‘muses’ in the South Sea islands. As for the Tahitian name Paul bestows on his farm, Noa Noa was also the title of Gauguin’s autobiographical account of his time in Tahiti, part of his creation of himself as a sexually liberated man, ahead of his time.

Lafarge’s writing is cleverly structured, matching Frances’ hopeful, miles-wide view of the Pyrénées in the bright sun becoming narrower as the narrative descends to a darker storyline, with later scenes going so far as to take place in the pitch black, under a tarpaulin older than Frances is, the only shelter from a raging storm. Essentially a novel about a toxic relationship, Paul’s many layers of imbalance cover language and voice, complicity, age, and life experience.

Paul by Daisy Lafarge (Granta, £14.99)