Door de zelfmoord van haar moeder krijgt een veertigjarige vrouw een heel ander beeld van haar familie ( )

"I am writing about Lucile through the eyes of a child who grew up too fast, writing about the mystery she always was to me, simultaneously so present and so distant."

By happenstance, I appear to be reading a lot of what seems to be called "auto-fiction" (i.e. My Struggle and Kate Zambreno's Drifts. I'm not sure what the exact technical definition of auto-fiction is, but in any event this book has been described as auto-fiction, or at the least it is a very loose memoir. Delphine is a French writer I'd never heard of before, and in this book she presents a narrative about her family with a focus on her mother, who suffered from various forms of mental illness over the years and who committed suicide in her early 60's. It was nominated for 8 major literary awards in France, and won 2.

As the book opens, Delphine has discovered her mother in bed in her apartment, dead for several days, an apparent suicide barely in her 60's. She thereafter begins a quest to "know" her mother, to answer the big question "Why?", probing family and friends.

Her mother came from a large somewhat Bohemian family, happy on the surface but seemingly often touched by tragedy. (Two of her brothers died young and tragically, and there were other suicides among family and friends). Her mother, Lucile, was a beautiful child, a child model in fact, but was described as a "combination of beauty and absence," both fascinating and attracting those around her, but also distancing them. She remained this enigma most of her life, often a loving mother to her two daughters, but just as often rejecting them. There were long periods when she was institutionalized. Delphine states at one point, "From the age of 14, not being like my mother was a major preoccupation, my main objective." And in this book, she is on a quest to understand her mother.

This was a fascinating and tragic family history. I would like to read more by this author.

3 1/2 stars

First line: "My mother was blue, a pale blue mixed with the colour of ashes ( )

Después de encontrar a Lucile, su madre, muerta en misteriosas circunstancias, Delphine de Vigan se convierte en una sagaz detective dispuesta a reconstruir la vida de la desaparecida. Los cientos de fotografías tomadas durante años, la crónica de George, abuelo de Delphine, registrada en cintas de casette, las vacaciones de la familia filmadas en Super 8, o las conversaciones mantenidas por la escritora con sus hermanos, son los materiales de los que se nutre la memoria de los Poirier.

C'est à la fois une biographie et une autobiographie, un hommage à la mère de l'auteur et un cri du coeur, un mélange de souvenirs et une volonté de faire un écrit construit. Tous ces éléments font de ce livre un récit profondément émouvant et personnel qu'une écrivaine moins habile aurait pu rater, car c'est la plume de l'auteur, sa verve, son vocabulaire et son aisance avec la langue que ce livre, qui aurait pu être décousu voire pénible, reste fluide et même hypnotisant.
J'ai dévoré ce livre dans lequel j'ai ressenti la joie, la peur, la tristesse, l'espoir et le désespoir de la famille Poirier. C'est un livre audacieux et tendre qui raconte une personne vive et perdue. ( )

> Rien ne s’oppose à la nuit, de Delphine DE VIGAN (Lattès, 437 p.)
Se reporter au compte rendu de Marie-Claude FORTIN
In: (2012). Compte rendu de [Nouveautés]. Entre les lignes, n° 8 (Hiver 2012), p. 32.… ; (en ligne),
URL : https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/el/2012-v8-n2-el1826571/65568ac/

> Rien ne s'oppose à la nuit by Delphine de Vigan
Se reporter au compte rendu de Cynthia LABORDE
In: The French Review, Vol. 86, No. 3 (February 2013), p. 616