Book: Laurence Boissier returns from the dead with “London 1:30 p.m.”

It is a choral novel, with a few protagonists and a multitude of extras. With “London 1:30 p.m.”, we are at Geneva-Cointrin airport. A place of transit, but also of life for those who serve at the bar, renew the decor or clean the toilets. He has also become one for Emilienne, who waits endlessly for her father to return. She knows of course that her plane crashed in the English Channel, but her body never reappeared. Some mourning needs materiality to become real. Emilienne thus serves as the main narrator of an unpublished novel by Laurence Boissier, who indeed left us in January 2022, at the age of 56. A short life and an even briefer literary career. His first book was published in 2010.

Four destinies

“London 1:30 p.m.” is much earlier, since the manuscript had been submitted to art&fiction (a publishing house that I often talk to you about) in 2005. The thing is felt not because of clumsiness, but because imperceptibly our lives have changed since then. There was not yet the omnipresence of social networks. People spoke to each other more easily, which seems essential in a choral story. There was more room for the long term. But here people have to meet and communicate. Emilienne will therefore meet Raoul, the architect. Teodora, the Russian artist based in Geneva. Or Hadjira, the cleaning lady who dreams of opening a hammam in the airport and who succeeds. There are also, invisible, the spouses they tell us about. Plus the kids. All is neither good nor bad in these somewhat tired families. A couple wears out over time like a pair of pants. Hence for Emilienne the furtive desire for the third baby that she will not have seen her age, or a quick little adultery done well with her favorite bartender.

Tiny chapters

The action thus progresses through tiny chapters with a light tone, each focused on one of the main characters. But is there actually any action? We are here in life and not in literature, even if Laurence Boissier had one of the sharpest Romanesque pens. As a result, things come, go, come back and sometimes slip. There is no real beginning. There will be no real end to this thin work of 153 pages, sometimes half blank. Emilienne, Raoul, Teodora and Hadjira will tiptoe away from us, while the father of the first will reappear neither dead nor alive. The four count on the last page an additional year. They are in this fifties, where people so often believe that the last games are being made. A decade that Laurence Boissier will never have surpassed…

lost typescript

Why now this late release? The manuscript was not accepted at the time by art&fiction, which nevertheless made it appear much worse. Then the typescript was lost. A second version was found in the belongings of Laurence Boissier after her death. He had to return to the starting point. For art&fiction, this is an event today, which would not have been the case twenty years ago. Laurence has become a little Swiss literary myth, as evidenced by a tribute by Corinne Desarzens, printed in 100 copies and distributed to her loved ones. Even before the release day, January 10, the “papers” were published in the newspapers. All flattering. I am very enthusiastic myself, even if my favorite Laurence Boissier remains “Histoire d’un insurrection” from 2020, an alpine epic where hiking goes well with geology. Good news! art&fiction has once again republished in 2024 what has become a French-speaking classic.

P-S. I made it a rule to never talk about pure literature. There are therefore exceptions.

Practical

“London 11:30”, by Laurence Boissier, Editions art&fiction, 153 pages under shocking pink band. The work can therefore be accompanied by a booklet of the same color with texts by Antoine Jaccoud and Lisbeth Koutchoumoff printed in white on pink. Watch your eyes! They too are likely to rise up.

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Born in 1948, Etienne Dumont studied in Geneva which were of little use to him. Latin, Greek, law. A failed lawyer, he turned to journalism. Most often in the cultural sections, he worked from March 1974 to May 2013 at the “Tribune de Genève”, starting by talking about cinema. Then came fine arts and books. Other than that, as you can see, nothing to report.More info

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