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Sex, philosophy and public transportation merge in strange ways in the debut novel by French journalist Céline Curiol. Voice Over tracks an unnamed female protagonist – a solitary thirtyish woman who makes a living announcing the arrivals and departures of trains at the Gare du Nord. The slightly detached yet ultimately compelling story follows her through Paris train stations, shops, cafés and boudoirs after she becomes obsessed with an unavailable man she meets at a party. Her meanderings bring her into contact with a broad spectrum of characters: a transvestite cabaret singer, a lecherous diplomat, a North African drug dealer, a sadistic psychiatric intern. As the woman’s dream of an affair with the object of her fixation begins to seem attainable, her grasp on reality loosens.

Although the time period is never explicitly stated, allusions to current events (dinner party chatter about Le Pen, news of the Northeastern blackout) situate the novel in the restive late summer of 2003. Curiol deftly captures the prevailing societal tension without slipping into pedantry. Her innominate heroine makes an ideal witness – an impassive reservoir for the novel’s unending stream of urban phantasmagoria.

The title Voice Over, which refers, presumably, to the woman’s job as an announcer, captures the protagonist’s numbed response to her experiences. It is also an apt description of Curiol’s prose – her narrative is frequently interrupted by disembodied and unidentified voices. Lines of dialogue, unframed by quotation marks, are often linked to a speaker after a slight delay. This disorienting effect is counterbalanced by Curiol’s precise details and inventive turns of phrase. Voice Over epitomizes what most either love or hate about French cultural exports: self-conscious artiness, sexual insouciance and sardonic charm. Megan Doll