Hector and the Secrets of Love

June 6, 2011
A smarmy follow-up to Lelordâs first effort finds the placid French psychiatrist Hector enlisted in a pharmaceutical experiment that leaves him with romantic troubles of his own. Listening to his unhappy patients, Hector observes that âlove, it seemed, was an endless source of suffering,â bons mots he has experienced with his own girlfriend, Clara, a salesperson at a big pharmaceutical company. While accompanying Clara on her company retreat, Hector is persuaded by Gunther, the conniving company head, into tracking down a rogue American professor of Happiness Studies who has vanished into an unnamed Asian country with a new drug that allows people to fall in love with whomever they want and, moreover, stay in love. Just as Clara is taking up an affair with her boss, Hector sets out in search of the professor, who drops him notes and delivers some of the love potion by a comely messenger, Vayla. Hector and Vayla fall irretrievably in love, though are unable to speak to each other. Ever aware of the economic inequities between him and those he encounters, Hector exhibits nonetheless some conflicted feelings regarding the beauty and youth of the Asian womenâand lovely Vaylaâs slavish obedience to his every whim. Lelordâs saccharine tale delineates a universal, palatable message about attachment and need, self-interest and freedom.

March 15, 2011

To analyze love is to find there is no there there. So it seems to Dr. Hector, a French psychiatrist wearied by the daily litanies of floundering romance.

Hector thinks he loves Clara. In fact, he once wanted to marry her. Now Clara wants marriage, but Hector is unsure. Love's puzzles inspire Hector to begin noting "Seedlings," thoughts on love's joy and pain. Clara works for a giant pharmaceutical company, perhaps Swiss, and thus emblematic of its utilitarian attitude toward love. The company invites Hector to a tropical isle to meet other experts, one a caricature of Dr. Ruth, and discusses the chemistry of love. Hector learns the company has already made progress on a pill to induce and perpetuate love. The formula, however, has been stolen by its creator, Dr. Chester Cormorant. Hector knows Cormorant, and he is persuaded by Gunther, the company's president, to find the missing scientist. That Hector will be half-a-world away will also ease the tension in Gunther and Clara's secret love affair. The search begins in Cambodia where Hector learns Cormorant wants to contact him, and convince him of the pill's effectiveness. In fact, Hector takes one, and gives another to Vayla, a beautiful masseuse to whom he is attracted. The pair promptly begin a sweetly passionate love affair. Hector also meets the mysterious Jean-Marcel, supposedly a sales representative, and two young female Japanese tourists. The action moves to Shanghai where the pills are tested. Pandas are involved, in a thoroughly sardonic fashion. By novel's end, Jean-Marcel, Clara, Gunther, Hector and the Japanese pair end up among the Gna-Doas, a lost Tibetan tribe in the Southeast Asian jungles. At this point, Hector has written 27 "Seedlings," all reminding him that "love is indeed complicated, difficult, and sometimes painful..."

Told in a wry, ironic, self-deprecating voice that sometimes addresses the reader, Lelord's second novel (Hector and the Search for Happiness, 2010) should intrigue readers of his first.

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