The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair

by Joël Dicker

  She was radiant.

  “You love it too?” she asked enthusiastically.

  “Love what?”

  “The rain.”

  “No … I … I hate it, in fact.”

  Her smile was glorious.

  “How can you hate rain? I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. Look at it! Look!”

  He lifted his head. Water was beading on his face. He watched those millions of dashes streaking the landscape, and he turned around in a circle. She did the same. They laughed. They were both soaked. They ended up taking refuge under the deck. From his pocket he took a pack of cigarettes that had been partly spared by the deluge, and lit one.

  “Can I have one?” she asked.

  He handed her the pack and she took one. He was captivated.

  “You’re the author, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “From New York …”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a question for you: Why leave New York to come to this hole?”

  He smiled. “I felt like a change of scenery.”

  “I would love to visit New York!” she said. “I’d walk around for hours, and I’d see all the shows on Broadway. I would love to be a star. A star in New York …”

  “Excuse me,” Harry said, “but do we know each other?”

  She laughed again that delicious laugh.

  “No. But everyone knows who you are. You’re the author. Welcome to Somerset. My name is Nola. Nola Kellergan.”

  “Harry Quebert.”

  “I know. Everyone knows—I told you.”

  He held out his hand to shake hers, but instead she leaned on his arm and, standing on tiptoes, kissed him on the cheek.

  “I have to go. Don’t tell anyone that I smoke, O.K.?”

  “O.K.”

  “Goodbye, Mr Author. I hope I’ll see you again.”

  And she vanished into the pouring rain.

  Who was this girl? His heart was racing. For a long time he stayed there under the deck, motionless; he stayed there until darkness fell. He was no longer aware of the rain, or the night. He wondered how old she could be. She was too young, he knew. But he was smitten. It felt as if she had set fire to his soul.

  *

  A call from Douglas brought me back to reality. Two hours had passed. Daylight was fading. Nothing remained in the hearth but embers.

  “Everyone is talking about you,” Douglas told me. “Nobody understands what you’re doing in New Hampshire. Everyone says it’s the biggest fuck-up of your life.”

  “Everyone knows that Harry is my friend. It’s the least I can do.”

  “But this is different. There are those murders, that book. I don’t think you realize the enormity of this thing. Barnaski is furious. He says you’ve gone to New Hampshire to hide. And he’s right. Today is June 17. Thirteen days from now, you’re finished.”

  “Jesus Christ, don’t you think I know that? Is that why you’re calling? To remind me of the mess I’m in?”

  “No, I’m calling because I have an idea.”

  “An idea? Alright—I’m listening.”

  “Write a book about the Harry Quebert affair.”

  “What? No, it’s out of the question. I’m not going to exploit Harry’s troubles to relaunch my career.”

  “Why is that ‘exploiting his troubles’? You told me you were going there to defend him. So, prove his innocence and write a book about it. Can you imagine how big it would be?”

  “All that in two weeks?”

  “I talked about it to Barnaski, to calm him down …”

  “What? You—”

  “Listen to me, Marc, before you get on your high horse. Barnaski thinks this is a golden opportunity! He says that Marcus Goldman writing about the Harry Quebert affair is a seven-figure deal! It could be the book of the year. He’s prepared to renegotiate your contract. He’s offering to wipe the slate clean: a new contract with him that would supersede the previous one, and with an advance of a million dollars. You know what that means?”

  What it meant was that this book would be a surefire bestseller, a guaranteed success, and a mountain of cash in the bargain.

  “Why would Barnaski do that for me?”

  “He’s not doing it for you; he’s doing it for himself. You don’t understand—everyone here is talking about this case. A book like that would be the deal of the century!”

  “I don’t think I’m capable of it. I don’t know how to write anymore. I don’t even know if I ever knew how to write. And investigating a crime… that’s what the police are for. I don’t know anything about that.”

  Douglas wouldn’t let it go. “This is the chance of a lifetime.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “When you say that, it means you won’t think about it.”

  This observation made us both laugh. He knew me well.

  “Do you think it’s possible to fall in love with a fifteen-year-old girl?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m not sure of anything.”

  “And what is love?”

  “Marc, please, this is not the time for a philosophical conversation.”

  “But he loved her! Harry fell madly in love with this girl. He was on the beach, in front of his house. He saw her and he fell in love. Why her and not someone else?”

  “I don’t know. But I would be curious to know why you feel so bound to Quebert.”

  “Marcus the Magnificent,” I replied.

  “What?”

  “Marcus the Magnificent. A young man who couldn’t get ahead in life. Until he met Harry. It was Harry who taught me to be a writer. He taught me the importance of knowing how to fall.”

  “What are you talking about? Have you been drinking? You’re a writer because you have talent.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re not born a writer; you become one.”

  “Is that what happened at Burrows?”

  “Yes. He passed on all his knowledge to me. I owe him everything.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “If you like.”

  So that evening I told Douglas the story of what tied me to Harry. After our conversation, I went down to the beach. I needed to get some fresh air. Thick clouds could be seen through the darkness. It was a humid night; a storm was brewing. Suddenly the wind whipped up: The trees began shaking furiously, as if the world itself were announcing the fall of the great Harry Quebert.

  It was much later when I returned to the house. As I reached the front door I found a plain, unaddressed envelope, inside of which I found a typed message. It said:

  Go home, Goldman.

  28

  The Importance of Knowing How to Fall

  (Burrows College, Massachusetts, 1998–2002)

  “Harry, if I could learn only one thing from you, what would it be?”

  “I’d like to ask you the same question.”

  “For me, it’s the importance of knowing how to fall.”

  “I agree entirely. Life is a long drop down, Marcus. The most important thing is knowing how to fall.”

  As well as being the year of the great ice storm that paralyzed the northern United States and part of Canada, leaving millions of people in darkness for several days, 1998 was also the year I met Harry. That fall I moved to the Burrows College campus, a mix of prefabricated housing and Victorian buildings surrounded by vast and beautifully kept lawns. I was given a nice room in the east wing of dormitories, which I shared with a pleasant, skinny, bespectacled black kid from Minnesota named Jared, who had left his interfering family and, visibly terrified by his new freedom, kept asking if he was allowed to do things. “Am I allowed to buy a Coke? Am I allowed to get back to campus after 10 p.m.? Am I allowed to keep food in my room? Am I allowed to skip class if I’m sick?” I always replied that since the Thirteenth Amendment had abolished slavery, he was allowed to do whatever he liked, and he glowed with happiness.


  Jared had two obsessions: studying, and calling his mother to tell her everything was fine. For my part, I had only one: becoming a famous writer. I spent my time writing short stories for the school literary magazine, but it published only about half of them, and always on the worst pages—the ones with the ads for local businesses that nobody was interested in: Lukas Printing, Forster Tire & Lube, Françoise Hair Salon, and Julie Hu Flowers. This seemed to me scandalous and unjust. In truth, from the time I arrived at Burrows, I had to face up to some extremely tough competition in the shape of Dominic Reinhartz, a junior with an exceptional talent for writing. His stories were always given pride of place in the magazine, and each time a new issue came out I would hear students talking admiringly about him in the library. The only unswerving support I received came from Jared, who read my short stories enthusiastically as they came off my printer and read them again when they appeared in the magazine. I always gave him a copy, but he insisted on paying the two dollars for it, two dollars that he worked so hard to earn as part of the cleaning staff at the school. His admiration for me seemed limitless. He would often say, “You’re a brilliant man, Marcus … what are you doing in a place like Burrows, Massachusetts, huh?” One Indian-summer evening, we stretched out on the campus lawn to drink beer and watch the sky. First Jared had asked if we were allowed to drink beer on campus, then he had asked if we were allowed on the lawns at night. Finally he spotted a shooting star and cried out: “Make a wish, Marcus! Make a wish!”

  And I thought that a shooting star, though it could be beautiful, was a star that was afraid of shining and was fleeing as far away as possible. A bit like me.

  *

  On Thursdays, Jared and I made sure we never missed the class given by one of the most important people at the college: the writer Harry Quebert. He called the shots at Burrows, and everyone listened to and respected his opinion, not only because he was Harry Quebert—the Harry Quebert, an American institution—but also because he was naturally impressive: tall, elegant, and with a speaking voice that could be both warm and thunderous. The students were all grateful that he gave his time to such a small institution, aware that a simple phone call was all it would take for him to be hired by the most prestigious schools in the country. He was also the only professor at Burrows who taught all his courses in the main amphitheater, which was usually reserved for graduation ceremonies and theatrical performances.

  This was also the year of the Lewinsky affair: the year of the presidential blow job, when the country discovered, to its horror, that fellatio had infiltrated the highest echelons of public life. The affair was on everyone’s lips, so to speak. On campus people talked of nothing else, and we all wondered what was going to become of President Clinton.

  One Thursday morning in late October, Harry Quebert began his class with these words: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re all very excited by what’s happening in Washington at the moment, aren’t we? The Lewinsky affair … Consider this: In the entire history of the United States of America, two reasons have been identified for terminating a presidential term of office—being a notorious crook, like Richard Nixon, or dying. And up until today, nine presidents have had their term of office cut short for one of those two reasons. Nixon resigned, and the other eight died, half of them assassinated. But now a third reason may be added to that list: fellatio. Cock sucking, blow jobs, giving head, playing the skin flute. And everyone is wondering if our great president, due to having his pants around his knees, is still our great president. Because this is America’s grand obsession: sex and morality. America is a pecker paradise. And you will see, a few years from now, that no-one will remember that Mr Clinton saved our failing economy, governed expertly with a Republican majority in the Senate, or made Rabin and Arafat shake hands. But everyone will remember the Lewinsky affair, because blow jobs, ladies and gentlemen, remain engraved in people’s memories. But so what if our president likes to get sucked off occasionally? He’s not exactly the only one. Who else in this room enjoys that?”

  Harry scanned the auditorium. There was a long silence. Most of the students were staring at their shoes. Jared, sitting next to me, actually closed his eyes to avoid meeting Quebert’s gaze. I raised my hand. I was sitting toward the back, and Harry, pointing at me, called out: “Stand up, my young friend. Stand up tall so we can see you, and tell us what’s on your mind.”

  Proudly I stood on my chair.

  “I like blow jobs a lot, Professor. My name is Marcus Goldman and I love getting my dick sucked. Just like the president.”

  Harry lowered his reading glasses and gave me an amused look.

  “Tell us, young man, do you like being sucked off by boys or girls?”

  “By girls, Professor Quebert. I am a heterosexual and a good American. God bless our president, sex, and America.”

  There was laughter from the stunned audience, and then applause. Harry was delighted. He explained to my fellow students:

  “You see, nobody will see this poor boy the same way anymore. Everyone will think: He’s the disgusting one who likes head. And irrespective of his talents, irrespective of his qualities, he will always be ‘Mr Blow job.’” He turned toward me again. “Mr Blow job, could you explain to us now why you made such a confession while your fellow students all had the good sense to keep their mouths shut?”

  “Because in pecker paradise, Professor Quebert, sex can cause your downfall, but it can also propel you to the top. And now that everyone’s eyes are fixed on me, I have the pleasure to inform you that I write very good short stories that appear in the literary magazine, issues of which will be on sale for only five dollars when this class is over.”

  At the end of the class, Harry came to find me at the amphitheater exit. My classmates had almost exhausted my stock of magazines. Harry bought the last copy.

  “How many did you sell?” he asked me.

  “All I had. About fifty copies. And about a hundred people ordered a copy, paid in advance. I bought them for two dollars each and I sold them for five. And not only that, but one of the members of the magazine’s staff just offered to make me editor. He said I’d given the magazine a huge publicity boost and he’d never seen anything like it. Oh yes, I almost forgot: About ten girls gave me their phone numbers. You’re right: This really is pecker paradise. And it’s up to each of us to use that fact wisely.”

  He smiled and offered me his hand.

  “Harry Quebert,” he said.

  “I know who you are, sir. I am Marcus Goldman. I dream of becoming a great writer like you. I hope you like my short story.”

  We exchanged a solid handshake and he told me, “Dear Marcus, I have no doubt whatsoever that you will go far.”

  *

  Truth be told, the farthest I went that day was to the office of the dean of humanities, Dustin Pergal, who summoned me there in a rage.

  “Young man,” he said in an excited, nasal voice, tightly gripping the armrests of his chair, “is it true you spoke words of a pornographic nature today in the college amphitheater?”

  “Pornographic? No.”

  “Is it not true that in front of three hundred of your fellow students, you spoke out in praise of oral relations?”

  “I talked about blow jobs, sir. Yes, indeed.”

  He lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

  “Mr Goldman, do you admit using the words God, bless, heterosexual, and America in the same breath?”

  “I don’t recall my exact words, but, yes, it was something like that.”

  He attempted to remain calm and to articulate his words slowly: “Mr Goldman, could you explain to me what kind of obscene statement could contain all of those words at the same time?”

  “Oh, please don’t worry, Dean—it wasn’t obscene. It was simply a blessing of God, America, sex, and all practices arising from it. From the front, from behind, from the left, from the right … every which way, if you see what I mean.”

  He lifted his eyes to the ceiling again.

&
nbsp; “Is it true that you then set up an unauthorized stand selling literary magazines?”

  “Absolutely, sir. But it was a case of force majeure that I will gladly explain now. You see, I put a great deal of effort into writing short stories for the magazine, but the editors always publish me on the worst pages. So I needed some publicity—otherwise nobody would read me. Why write if nobody is reading?”

  “Is it a short story of a pornographic nature?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I would like to take a look at it.”

  “Sure. It’s five dollars a copy.”

  Pergal exploded.

  “Mr Goldman! I don’t think you grasp the seriousness of the situation! People were shocked by what you said. Students have complained. It is a troublesome situation for you, for me, for everybody. Apparently, you declared”—he read from a page in front of him—“‘I like blow jobs. I am a heterosexual and a good American. God bless our president, sex, and America.’ What in God’s name is this nonsense?”

  “It’s just the truth, Dean: I am a heterosexual and a good American.”

  “I don’t want to know that! Your sexual orientation is of no interest to anybody! As for the disgusting practices involving your nether regions, they have nothing to do with your fellow students!”

  “But all I did was answer Professor Quebert’s questions.”

  When he heard this, Pergal almost choked.

  “What … What did you say? Professor Quebert’s questions?”

  “Yes. He asked who liked being sucked off, and I raised my hand because I consider it rude not to reply when someone asks you a question. He asked whether I preferred being sucked off by boys or by girls. That’s all.”

  “Professor Quebert asked you whether you liked …”

  “Exactly. You see, Dean, it’s President Clinton’s fault. What the president does, everybody wants to do.”

  Pergal got up to look for a folder from among his hanging files. Then he sat down again and looked me straight in the eyes.

  “Who are you, Mr Goldman? Tell me a little about yourself. I am curious to know where you’re from.”