What better to take on vacation than a big, intelligent novel that keeps you in suspense until the end? A great “romantic” novel, as we would say of those by Dumas or Hugo. This is the case of Camille de Peretti’s book, The Unknown Portraitwhich takes us through the entire 20th century, from Vienna to New York, into the whirlwind of the American dream and Viennese decadence, revealing hypocrisy, capitalist harshness, bastard children, family secrets, abandonment. The Unknown Portrait is the table Portrait of a lady by Gustav Klimt with a very surprising destiny which serves as a true framework for the book but treated with the freedom of the novelist. Camille de Peretti weaves a fascinating work which is not about Klimt or art, but of course the century, with its dramas, its loves and its secrets. We will not reveal a plot full of twists and turns. She has studied the eras she evokes at length and gradually reveals the secrets that unite her characters. G.Dt.
⇒ “The Unknown Woman in the Portrait | Novel | Camille de Peretti | Calmann-Lévy, 357 pp., €21.50.
“Blonde Dust”
The idea of vacation is often associated with the desire to meet people. Overturning the preconceptions that have obscured the true personality of Marilyn Monroe, Tatiana de Rosnay meets this desire for discovery with her novel Blonde dust centered on the star with the fabulous destiny. So many books and articles have been published about her that we think we know everything about her life, her loves, her death… By observing her through the eyes of a maid in her service, two years before her death and during the trying filming of the film The misfits who signed her quarrel with Arthur Miller, Tatiana de Rosnay approaches the most intimate part of the anxious, fragile, generous woman behind the unstable, capricious, provocative star, drugged with medication and alcohol. Legendary, Marilyn was terribly alone. It was enough that she was beautiful, sensual, titillating. Who worried about knowing what was in her head and heart? Integrating verified facts into a romantic story, the lively and exotic book invites us to recognize a complex being, hurt by not being recognized for who he was. M.V.
⇒ ““Blonde Dust” | Novel | Tatiana de Rosnay | Albin Michel, 320 pp., €21.90
“Somnambulist”
With Will Bear, Dan Chaon offers us an irresistible character despite his troubled past: this all-round mercenary can be as formidable as he is deeply honest and human. Carried by the ardent and mischievous voice of Will himself, this cocktail will very quickly reveal his high potential. The phone call from Cammie, a young woman in danger, who claims to be his biological daughter, will change his life. The problem is that Will, a former fugitive, has no official existence. How did she find him? Very quickly, doubt creeps in: Cammie may be just a voice generated by the AI that is trying to trap him. If doubt is a poison, it is also an extraordinary narrative spring. Deep, invasive, the reflection on paternity as on the excesses of a future but near era is nourished here by the ambivalence of the situations. Authoritatively mixing dark novel and dystopia, carefully distilling the revelations, Dan Chaon takes us on a road trip that is impossible to put down, to which he offers ample ramifications. G.S.
⇒ Sleepwalker | Novel | Dan Chaon, translated from English (United States) by Hélène Fournier | Albin Michel | 373 pp., 23,90 €
“From the same wood”
Marion Fayolle was born and raised in Ardèche. On the highlands. She chose this isolated region to set the scene for her first novel, dedicated to her family. There is, therefore, necessarily a good dose of autobiography. From the same wood tells the story of the rural and almost closed life of an Ardèche family. Like Simon Johannin and Summer of CarrionMarion Fayolle does not evade any of the difficulties of rural life. The pervasive esotericism (the “curi-alls”), the hitches, the arguments, the slaughter of animals, mental illnesses, alcoholism, the “kid”‘s lack of psychology, the lack of psychology of ancestors with the little ones, the shame of young country people at school, the isolation, the desire to flee… The young author finds, above all, the words to evoke family neuroses, atavisms, sexist injunctions, how to get rid of them, how to preserve, also, certain values after leaving the farm and when you become a mother? The picture painted in this book is not miserabilist. Here, it is above all the light that filters through these pages describing a childhood in the trees, caressing the animals’ noses, kissing friends in the woods, being surrounded by the warmth of the family cocoon. A beautiful tribute, also, to the countryside, to breeders and to a world that is fading away. J.Besn.
⇒ “From the same wood” | Novel | Marion Fayolle | Gallimard, 128 pp., €16.50
“Down in the valley”
Rather sea or mountains? For some, here is perhaps something to change your mind. For others, a short novel that will accompany you on the path to the summits. We knew Paolo Cognetti’s talent for describing the nature of the Aosta Valley where the film took place The Eight Mountains, adapted for cinema in 2022. Here, far from the images of Epinal, it shows a darker side, the hardness of the rocks and faces which populate these Alpine valleys whose life has been so disrupted by the arrival of modernity . This is already well established when Luigi and Fredo’s father dies; one remained in the country, the other exiled to Canada. Around the reunion between the brothers, who have nothing in common other than an immoderate taste for drinking and their father’s old house, Cognetti composes a tightly drawn choral drama, with a conciseness close to the minimalism of the short story. All in intensity, to celebrate the saving power of silence and wild life, and to bring out all the humanity of these characters full of anger, despair and revolt. Al.M.
⇒ “Down in the Valley” | Novel | Paolo Cognetti, translated from Italian by Anita Rochedy | Stock, 155 pp., €19
“The Curse of the Flores”
From her 80-year-old aunt Helena, Alice receives a mass veil.Since it was embroidered, this veil has always been entrusted to the youngest woman in our family.” she told him. In the eyes of Alice, in her twenties, who regularly participates in demonstrations in the streets of Rio de Janeiro to denounce women victims of feminicide, this veil alone brings together two major tools of female castration: marriage and Church. In The curse of the Flores, Angelica Lopes goes back to the beginning of the 20th century and moves back and forth with the beginning of the 21st to illustrate the fact that lace was also an incredible means of emancipation. She then delves into the history of a group of women (because, since the day a gypsy woman predicted that for seven generations the Flores family would be cursed, men have been dying prematurely). An impressive family saga well anchored in our times. M.-A.G.
⇒ “The Curse of the Flores” | Novel | Angélica Lopes, translated from Portuguese (Brazil) by Marine Duval | Threshold, 278 pp., €21.90
“Facing the slope”
At 58, Léonore is taking early retirement. Those around him do not fail to provide him with many activities to occupy his free time from now on. As for his ex-colleagues, they offered him two nights in a hotel near Trouville. She goes there straight away. One of the evenings, she goes into a nightclub where she sees DJ Marlone, biological father of the disco remix, of whom she was a big fan, as a teenager! From one incident to another, Cécile Reyboz sends her heroine into the mountains where the famous DJ has property… which he wants to get rid of. But The Lovely Place, the land where it is located, is coveted by various municipal and associative projects. Will the fifty-year-old be able to enjoy it and will she succeed in integrating into this village that is a little too quiet? An enjoyable read, Cécile Reyboz’s imagination proving overflowing. With twists and turns, each one crazier than the last. A book that almost makes you want to retire. As long as it means experiencing the same adventures of Léonore! M.-A.G.
⇒ “Facing the slope” | Romance | Cécile Reyboz | Denoel, 238 pp., €18
“Solar Arctic”
Anna Katarina Boberg (1864-1935)… A name that may not mean anything to you, and yet the life of this impressionist painter from the North is worth the detour. Sophie Van der Linden tells us about it with brilliance, breath and kiss in Solar Arctic. A bourgeois and adventurer, Anna Boberg dreamed of only one thing: to leave Swedish high society to go to the Lofoten Islands in winter, to settle down, to go out in the middle of the night in the snow, an easel under her arm, dressed in reindeer fur breeches and a sealskin to capture the aurora borealis, the unfathomable lights, the frosty air and the immensity of solitude. We owe her the painting Mountain. Study from the Nordic countries which represents the Store Molla massif in the Lofoten Islands and which could resemble the Cathedrals Monet, of whom the Swedish impressionist was a fervent admirer, Sophie Van der Linden slipped into Anna Boberg’s palette. As soon as the artist arrived in the cabin built by her architect husband, she set to work, in search of intensity and recognition at a time when women had no place in painting salons. L.B
⇒ “Solar Arctic” | Novel | Sophie Van der Linden | Denoël, 128 pp., €15
“Redhead”
“In all current books, in my opinion, too much space is given to petty beings and they neglect to make us perceive the panting of the beautiful inhabitants of the universe.” Denis Infante quotes this sentence from Jean Giono (The song of the world) in the preamble to his work. Not a coincidence, since his tale is populated by magnificent beings. Starting with Rousse, its main character, a young vixen “with flamboyant dress” free and solitary who grew up in the Chet woods. This place once seemed heavenly and peaceful, today it has become inhospitable. So, Rousse dared to leave her nest and her family to cross the Chet River in order to “find fresher air”. We follow her initiatory adventure through this new world in which she must manage her homesickness, distressing atmospheres and dangers. Denis Infante decided to remove most of the definite and indefinite articles and to sometimes reverse the structure of the sentences. A radical choice to which we must get used, of course, but which allows readers to be touched because it allows us to enter the head of a vixen confronted with the consequences of global warming and a world shaped by men, without understanding exactly what is happening to him. A magnificent poetic tale. J.Besn.
⇒ “Redhead or The Beautiful Inhabitants of the Universe” | Conte | Denis Infante | Tristram, 133 pp., €16.50
“Python”
The heroine of Nathalie Azoulai’s 12th novel, which she describes as autofiction, is none other than the author herself. A writer in her fifties who plans to observe the world of code and coders and to learn the programming language Python, the most widespread (used by Google, Instagram, Spotify or Netflix), and also the easiest. She enrolls in the 42 school, the best in the world for this learning, and rubs shoulders with young adults (mostly male) the same age as her children. She also takes private lessons. A delightful read, Python has no equal in confronting worlds without opposing them (scientific/literary), (young/old). Thanks to a style of offbeat humor, Nathalie Azoulai also manages to retrace the history of the code since the Second World War while not forgetting, of course, to test what ChatGPT can do for literature. A book where you learn while having fun. What more ? M.-A.G.
⇒ “Python” | Story | Nathalie Azoulai | POL, 222 pp., €20
