January 4, 2025 by Francoise Fontanelle
© F.Mantovani – Éditions Gallimard
Richard Morgiève? Never read. However, a few days ago in C à vous, I listened when I heard Pierre Lescure praise “The richness of his writing; which makes you want, every three pages, to go back and reread a second time.” Then Morgiève explains “I don’t like books where we find sentences that we have already read elsewhere (…) Each of my sentences is my sentence. I don’t like it when the reader is smarter than me. I want to force him to read my book. » It didn’t take much for me to want to discover this author and his thirty other novels, plays and screenplays, starting with the last one: The Mission.
The Mission / Richard Morgiève
Short sentences. Shoulder-to-shoulder dialogues and inner monologues. The character of Jacques is outlined in a few strokes. It is June 6, 1944, Landing Day, his 17th birthday. An orphan, Jacques is on his way to a farm where he knows he will be forced to work at will. However, he chose, for the first time in his life, to step aside… to “have a little good time” before returning to this farm where Assistance placed him until his emancipation twelve months later .
Taking this “freedom”, he will push open the doors of chance and form his destiny. Go through the chaos of the Liberation, face the hatred and versatility of men, meet mystical characters, discover love, carry a dual identity and complete a mission.
More than a story, this story is a tale where the purity of the character, in the face of so much hatred, warns: “Nature is God. One day she would take revenge on men. »
The Mission
Richard Morgiève
Éditions Joëlle Losfeld – August 2024
234 pages – 20 €
Heart / Thibault de Montaigu
At the request of his father, Thibault de Montaigu sets out in search of the story of his great-grandfather, Louis de Montaigu, captain in the 7th Hussars, who died in August 1914 in a heroic assault to save a captured infantry company. trapped by a German artillery battery. An investigation that will take him from the guillotine of Terror to the forgiveness requested by his father, between secrets and family heritage.
Albin Michel – August 2024
328 pages – 21,90 €
A Summer of Your Own / Ann Patchett
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters returned to the family orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared the stage and a romance. As Lara remembers the past, her daughters examine their own lives, their relationship with their mother, and reconsider the world and what they thought they knew.
Translation Hélène Frappat
Actes Sud – January 8, 2025
462 pages – 22,80 €
The Lorraine of Yesteryear / Jean-Marie Cuny
Through nearly 400 old postcards, Jean-Marie Cuny bears witness to the Lorraine identity of the early 20th century. Peasants, lumberjacks, schlitters and winegrowers rub shoulders with forges and blast furnaces, glassworks, crystal works, mines and quarries, crafts, small trades and garrisons… Lorraine in the Belle Époque is also the blossoming of transport, the demographic explosion , the beginnings of tourism, the joys of winter sports and the beginning of aeronautics.
Iconography Roland Brach
Éditions Hervé Chopin – October 24, 2024
160 pages – 29,90 €
An article produced in partnership with Tandem Magazine, to consult HERE
