Simenon in Lakeville

A one-time Lakeville resident, the Belgian author Georges Simenon (1903-1989), has landed a new generation of fans.

Penguin Classics is reissuing the entire series of Inspector Jules Maigret crime books in new translations. 

Maigret figured in 76 novels and 28 short stories published between 1931 and 1972.

Since 2016, Great Britain’s ITV has featured Rowan Atkinson in the lead role. Shows are set in Paris but sometimes filmed elsewhere. Michael Gambon played the pipe-puffing crime solver in one earlier series from 1992-1993 and there have been other TV and film versions.

Simenon and his family (his Canadian wife, Denyse Ouimet, and children) lived at Shadow Rock Farm, just south of  Lake–ville  village, for five years.

Exaggerating Lakeville as “a small country town of some 25,000 inhabitants,” biographer Fenton Bresler says in “The Naked Man: The Real-Life Story of the Man Who Created Maigret” (1984): “None of the local inhabitants who knew the Simenon family there from July 1950 to March 1955 know why this celebrated French writer, with his strange ways, burst upon their small town or why, with equal abruptness, he left them without even a farewell party for his friends to mark the occasion.”

Reporters Mara Scherbatoff and Nick de Morgoli of Paris Match visited the writer for a story in the magazine’s May 16, 1953, issue. “Simenon explains that the reason he came to live in America was because he wanted  his son Marc to have an American education,” they said.

His non-Maigret book “The Death of Belle” (1952) has a Lakeville setting, though the community is not named. 

Simenon was a fast writer. His books were short. He worked out the plot resolutions as he wrote. There wasn’t much detection involved. 

His publisher couldn’t keep up with his output.

Creatively, while at Shadow Rock Farm Simenon produced 26 novels, half of them Maigrets, half romans-durs, his more literary efforts.

I’ve recently read three of his novels and while I appreciate his psychological nuances, I find them a little dated and at times unsettling.

Simenon’s lifestyle was stranger than that of his characters. 

He was a serial adulterer.

“At one point, he was living with his wife and two mistresses, and still went adventuring off with prostitutes and casual women he met in bars. ‘I would even say that sex is the only possible form of communication with women,’ Simenon once told a friend,” according to Scott Bradfield in an essay in The New York Times of Feb. 20, 2015. 

Simenon declared in 1977 that he had had sex with 10,000 women in the last 61 years.

The author apparently hasn’t raised the eyebrows of the #Metoo watchdogs.

I’m reminded of civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois being vilified for having very late in life joined the American Communist Party.

Du Bois takes a beating. But Lucille Ball joined the party, too, and her reputation stands intact?

Lucky Simenon.

 

 The writer is senior associate editor of The Lakeville Journal.

Latest News

Smiles, bright lights shine at Canaan Summer Nights

Guests of the carnival at Bunny McGuire Park had a wide variety of rides to choose from, including a classic merry-go-round.

Photo by Simon Markow

NORTH CANAAN — Four days of festivities concluded Saturday, July 19, with the grand finale of Canaan Summer Nights.

The carnival first arrived at Bunny McGuire Park on Wednesday, kicking off North Canaan Event Committee’s new vision for summer activities in town.

Keep ReadingShow less
Millions in funding awarded to help conservation groups preserve open space

Supported by a $250,000 LEAP grant in late June, the 5,200-acre acquisition of a permanent conservation easement by the Kent-based Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy protects the land surrounding the Colebrook Reservoir, the state’s largest remaining untapped drinking water reservoir.

Photo by Debra A. Aleksinas

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont (D) announced July 15 that the state is awarding $14.3 million in Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition (OSWA) grants to protect 2,270 acres across 22 towns.

The grants, administered to land conservation groups by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), include five properties in the Northwest Connecticut towns of Cornwall, Kent, Salisbury and Sharon, encompassing more than 400 acres with awards totaling more than $3 million.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bunny Williams to receive Estabrook Community Leadership Award

Bunny Williams, right, and Betsy Smith

Photo by James Gillispie

LAKEVILLE — The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News will award the 2025 Estabrook Community Leadership Award to Bunny Williams at a Jubilee celebration on Oct. 12 at the Grove in Lakeville. The award is presented to honor outstanding leadership in community service, as exemplified by Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook. Betsy Smith of Sharon is serving as Chair of the event.

As a successful design professional, Bunny Williams of Falls Village is an active and prominent supporter of a wide range of community organizations that provide essential services throughout our towns. According to Williams, “We live in not only the most beautiful part of the country, but in a community of such generous people who help make these events so successful. I think we all feel we want to do what we can to help support the things we care so much about. I am humbled by this honor by The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News, our connection to knowing what is happening in the community .”

Keep ReadingShow less
Lakeville swimmer heads to nationals

Phoebe Conklin, of Lakeville, is a rising freshman at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

Photo by Riley Klein

LAKEVILLE — Later this month, Phoebe Conklin, 14, will swim in three events at the YMCA National Long Course Swimming Championships in Ocala, Florida.

The decorated swimmer has been racking up records for the past few years with the Northwest Connecticut YMCA Lasers Swim Team. Now in her third season with the team, Conklin qualified for nationals in the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle and 100-meter butterfly.

Keep ReadingShow less