The Erasers

Alain Robbe-Grillet was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman (new novel) trend of the 1960s. The Erasers (Les Gommes) was his 1953 award-winning novel.

After a failed attempt on his life by an unknown terrorist cell, Professor Daniel Dupont decides to fake his own death. The government authorities, believing that the attack is part of a series of political assassinations, send Wallas, a recently promoted special investigator, to the provincial town where the crime took place. As he wanders the confusing streets of the town, he finds himself increasingly lost in a web of conspiracies, doppelgangers and memories. Cleverly deconstructing the detective genre, The Erasers, Alain Robbe-Grillet 's first published novel, shifts between various characters and time frames, while maintaining the suspense of a conventional thriller. The result is an engrossing examination of consciousness and reality which is also one the founding texts of the Nouveau Roman school.