If Mundus begins his journey with a vade mecum, Dominique Fabre’s short novel, The Waitress was New was mine—the little French book in my jacket pocket that went everywhere with me, particularly to doctor’s appointments for borderline afflictions. Again, we have a wholly engaging ordinary life where nothing much happens, with everything in fact going on. It’s recounted to us in all modesty by a Parisian barman, Pierre (“I’m only a barman”),(43) who parcels out his opinions and increasing amounts of personal information, regularly accented with self-deprecating tag lines, such as “If you asked me…if you don’t mind my saying…I’m just throwing this out.” (28, 45, 28)
Pierrot, as he is called, is both participant and observer of the small world Le Cercle, a café located in the Hauts-de-Seine area where he’s been working most of his life. A sweetly comic book, savored with tristesse, lightly renders feeling and profundity in the manner only the French can.

Pierre daily patiently applies a steady hand to yet another of the café’s perpetual crises involving his absent boss and long suffering wife. Feeling old and worn at 56 and weighing the prospects of retirement, while assaying his physical fallibilities, “I’m a little hard of hearing in my left ear,” Pierre confides, “even though I was never much of a masturbator.”(20) Like Mundus, Pierre is also a reader and finds himself caught up with Primo Levi’s If This is a Man; he tells us, “He was some guy, that Monsieur Primo Levi. There’s somebody I would have loved to have as a customer.”(73)
Seeming so clearly on the surface a man without qualities, Pierrot provides a narrative voice riveting and unforgettable. Although he would more likely conclude, “so that’s how it is.” (95)

Reamy Jansen’s prose and poetry have appeared in a variety of literary magazines; he’s received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize for both his poetry and prose. He is, along with his collaborator, the poet Daniel M. Nester, the co-editor of “The Out of Bounds Essay,” a new and continuing bi-monthly feature of this magazine.