In a very real sense the options available to Jean and Tati are so dramatically narrowed in such a short span of time that each feels that his/her actions are inevitable, almost commanded by fate. From that point on the relationship between Jean and Tati takes a turn for the worse and continues to deteriorate. This mutually beneficial relationship works out fine for a while, until Jean discovers the attractive young girl (Tati's niece) that lives on the adjacent property. Jean sees Tati as someone who can provide him with food, shelter, and a bedtime companion.

They meet on a bus and Tati decides without hesitation that Jean will provide her with help around the farm. Unlike Tati, he comes from a solid, relatively wealthy local family. Jean, is a murderer, recently-released from a French prison. She has clawed her way up to this not quite middle-class existence and will endure hard work and the infrequent sexual demands of the father-in-law to maintain her rightful place in this home. Tati is a middle-aged widow, living in a small village in a house owned by her aged father-in-law. It struck me, as I read 'The Widow' that a typical Simenon story presents us with characters whose options seem so constrained to them that their actions, often desperate and violent, appear inevitable. But the decisions made for us and the decisions we make every day serve to winnow out our options. On the day we are born the options available to us seem limitless. I've sometimes thought of the arc of a person's life as one that consists of a series of narrowing options.

NYRB Books is reissuing Simenon's hard novels. Although best known for his Inspector Maigret detective novels, Simenon also wrote over a hundred novels that he referred to as `romans durs' (literally 'hard novels').

Simenon's obsession with writing caused him to break off an affair (he was prolific in this area of his life as well) with the celebrated Josephine Baker in Paris when he could only write twelve novels in the twelve month period in which they were involved.

Born in Belgium in 1903, Simenon turned out hundreds of novels. Georges Simenon was nothing if not prolific in both his literary and public life. Where there was no way to turn aside either to the right hand or to the left.' Numbers 22:26

The widow simenon