January 7th 2015 started much like any other day for Philippe Lançon. He got up, took a shower, made coffee, replied to a few emails, exercised, and cycled to work. At around 11:30 he was sitting in a meeting when two gunmen walked into the conference room and murdered ten people. Lançon was shot in the face and was one of the few to survive what Wikipedia rather blandly calls the “Charlie Hebdo shooting”. Even the sudden intrusion of violent death didn’t immediately disrupt the banal routine of an otherwise typical day. Lying in his own blood on the meeting room floor and staring at the bodies of his dead colleagues, Lançon thought about work deadlines, making sure he had his phone, and keeping his backpack close.

I was about to write that Disturbance is Lançon’s account of his recovery, but it isn’t because recovery is meaningless in the context of his experiences. Let’s just say Disturbance is about what happened next. The surgeries to re-build his face, the long stay in hospital, the reactions of loved ones, and so much more, some of it woven around memories of his earlier life: books read, articles written, music heard, and places visited. Lançon would be forgiven some measure of self-pity in the circumstances, but there’s not a trace of it in Disturbance. He despises the sickly, attention-seeking sentimentality of American “victim memoirs”. Like the good journalist he is, he focuses his sharp eyes on what matters, caring not at all what the reader might feel about him. For Lançon, what matters is to be a truthful witness of events. Others can and will interpret and pass judgement, but Lançon witnessed, suffered, and remained. And reported for those who couldn’t and never will.