People Like Them: A Novel

The Algerian-French Writer Samira Sedira’s novel People Like Them is a psychological study of why Constant Guillot committed the terrible murders of the entire Langlois family in the small village of Carmac in the French Alps. Sedira’s novel, People Like Them was translated by Lara Vergnaud. Sedira’s novel is “loosely” based on real-life’s murders that take place in the French region of Haute-Savoie in 2003 (Sedira & Vergnaud 174). Parts of People Like Them reminded me of the movie Parasite (2019) which was directed by Boon Jong-Ho. There is a racial element involved in the murders of the Langlois family. Bakary Langlois was a Black Frenchman who was born in Gabon, and he was adopted by a French couple (Sedira & Vergnaud 75). Bakary’s wife, Sylvia was a White French woman (Sedira & Vergnaud 105). They had three children (Sedira & Vergnaud 12-14). The neighboring family has the last name of Guillot, and they are White French people. The Goodreads reviewer named Warren Nelson is correct that many of the themes that appear in the American Writer Isabel Wilkerson’s nonfiction book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Sedira’s novel is told from the point of view of Constant Guillot’s wife named Anna Guillot. Anna may or may not be a reliable narrator. I think Sedira leaves it to the reader to decide whether Anna is a reliable narrator. Sedira, as translated by Vergnaud writes in the “Author’s Note” that “criminals-even murderers-serve as mirror images; they reflect our own fallibility” (Sedira & Vergnaud 178). I think Samira Sedira’s novel, People Like Them, as translated by Lara Vergnaud, proves this point well. I found the Goodreads review by Warren Nelson helpful in writing this ‘review.’ Works Cited, Wilkerson, Isabel. 2020. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. New York: Random House LLC.