Le Coup de lune

Tropic Moon

First edition
Author	Georges Simenon
Original title	Coup de Lune
Translator	Marc Romano
Country	Belgium
Language	French
Publisher	Éditions Fayard
Publication date	1933
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	xi, 133 (NYRB)

Coup de Lune (Éditions Fayard, 1933), literally "moonburn" or "moonstroke" in French, but translated into English as Tropic Moon, is a novel by Belgian writer Georges Simenon. It is among one of the author's first self-described roman durs or "hard novels" to distinguish it from his romans populaires or "popular novels," which are primarily mysteries that usually feature his famous Inspector Maigret character.

In a larger context, the novel deals with French attitudes towards Africans and the French colonial experience. Coup de lune has much in common with the noir fiction subgenre of hardboiled detective fiction, and could be described as being a "colonial noir" story, though arguably there are also some existential elements present in the narrative. In his introduction to the New York Review Books edition, Norman Rush finds certain parallels between this work and Journey to the End of the Night by Céline.

The novel is divided into thirteen chapters and is written using the third person limited narrative voice.

The story concerns Joseph Timar, a sensitive young Frenchman, who travels from La Rochelle to Libreville in Gabon to work at a job his uncle has arranged for him at SACOVA, a logging business. Upon arriving, he discovers the job is not available; unsure of what to do, he finds temporary residence at a local hotel where he ends up spending his time drinking and playing billiards with a group of hotel regulars: an assortment of loggers and minor government officials. After the first night of his stay, Timar awakens to an unexpected sexual encounter with Adèle, the proprietor's wife. Shortly thereafter, a black servant, Thomas, is found murdered and Adèle's ailing husband Eugène finally dies of snail fever.

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