Review: Inhuman Resources

Inhuman Resources by Pierre Lemaitre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pierre Lemaitre’s Inhuman Resources was originally published in France in 2010 just two years after the financial crash but its story, of a man driven to extreme measures by lack of work opportunity, resonates just as well today. Alain Delambre, a fifty-seven year old former Human Resources Manager, was made redundant four years previously and works in menial, part-time jobs to survive. When an altercation with his superior in a packing depot leads to his dismissal, Alain becomes increasingly desperate. So, when a potential opportunity with a huge company presents itself, Alain jumps at the chance to take part in the recruitment exercise, and looks for any advantage, fair or otherwise, which might bring the role his way.

The story is told in three sections, before, during, and after the recruitment exercise, a high pressure ‘role-playing’ hostage situation in which Alain and another HR professional will help choose from the candidates, none of whom know that they are role-playing, while simultaneously competing for the permanent HR role. The novel is satirical and full of implicit criticisms of Big Business, where people are ‘resources’ and senior management earn huge salaries and bonuses while low-paid workers are reduced to living in cars on Paris streets.

To be honest, while I initially sympathised with Alain, who narrates the first section, I became increasingly frustrated with him as a character. He constantly makes ‘wrong’ decisions, driven no doubt by his frantic search for work, but, despite his situation, he seems to believe still in the capitalism which has put him where he now is, constantly quoting management theories. His aim appears to be to get back his position in the system rather than to change it. His self-pity means that the latter chapters of this section start to drag. But then the book jumps into life.

The second and third sections of the novel are excellent. The book transforms into a high paced thriller, the narrative increasingly breathless and difficult to predict. I enjoyed it a lot - there are enough twists to keep the reader guessing, many echoes of the current unbalanced system and uncertain future especially in post-Brexit Europe. A worthwhile read.

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