Albert Camus · 1942 · overland

Albert Camus's 1942 novel, set in French Algiers. Meursault, a detached young clerk, travels out to his mother's funeral, returns to an ordinary life of sun and sea, and then, on a glaring beach, commits a senseless killing for which he is tried less for the act than for his refusal to feel as others expect. The route traces his small, fateful movements around Algiers.

1. 1
   Algiers

   In Algiers, Meursault learns of his mother's death and receives the news with an indifference that will later be held against him.

2. 2
   Marengo

   He travels out to the home at Marengo for the funeral, enduring the vigil and the burial under a punishing sun, feeling little of what is expected of him.

3. 3
   The Beach

   Back near Algiers, a day at a friend's beach bungalow ends when Meursault, dazzled by heat and light, shoots a man dead on the sand for no reason he can name.

4. 4
   Algiers

   Imprisoned and tried in Algiers, he is condemned as much for his strangeness and his honesty as for the crime, and finds at the end a kind of peace in the indifference of the world.