Crawl Space

A war criminal returns to the scene of the crime

It's 1999 and Emile Poulquet awaits sentencing in a Paris court for deporting thousands to almost certain death during World War II. But haunted by ghosts from his past, and determined to confront his dark legacy, he escapes and heads toward his beloved Finier, a rural town in the south of France where he once served as prefect. His return will have explosive consequences.

In Finier, Poulquet finds shelter within the strange embrace of a group of teenage wastrels, and encounters new breeds of idealism, degeneracy, and friendship. He sets out to find Arianne-a lifelong obsession and the widow of a Resistance hero-in order to hand her his last will and testament. But as he begins his quest, he cannot help being drawn, inexorably, toward another circle of refugees and reporters in town for a wartime reunion. He doesn't yet know that his worst betrayal-and the greatest test of his own ability to pardon another-is yet to come.

By turns epic and intimate, reflective and slyly humorous, Crawl Space limns the gray zone between past and future. Edie Meidav poignantly describes one man's tragic attempt to come to terms with the past.