Books: Philippe Jaenada on the provincial trail of the death of Jacqueline Harispe

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On this occasion, for the needs of the cause, he decided (the idea is clever) to take a tour of France on the fringes of France: from Dunkirk (not in Tamanrasset, obviously) to Hendaye, via Bagnères- de-Bigorre and Port-Vendres, Briançon, Menton, and so on… to return to its starting point, near the North Sea. He goes from hotel to hotel, from bars to cafes and bistros where one, two whiskeys or even three, if necessary, await him.

The Latin Quarter of the 1950s

In “Casualty is a very beautiful thing” Philippe Jaenada transports us to the Latin Quarter of the 1950s of the other century. At “Moineau”, this bistro where disenfranchised young people drink, chat, love each other, happily make mistakes, smoke firecrackers. Among these casual young people, Kaki, Jacqueline Harispe. Chief Inspector Jaenada is therefore leading the investigation.

He questions archives and witnesses. He of course read “In the Café of Lost Youth” by Modiano. Sparrow and his young regulars are at the center of his investigation. In concentric circles, he moves away from it (like him from Paris) because each character in this drama becomes a thread that he pulls to better understand the possible truth of this suicide.

Debord and Bourdieu in Pau

Humor is king there, his private life adds to it. We laugh. There he discovered Henry de Béarn, prince of Béarn, de Chalais, duke of Cantabria, count of Brassac and Marsan, marquis of Excideuil. Don't throw any more away! For the stubborn and hesitant reader (this is not incompatible) that I am, it is more than a surprise. It was soon accompanied by the discovery of Jean-Claude Guilbert, the writer, and especially of Guy Debord, the author of “La Société du spectacle”, a work which remains relevant today.

Joanada settles his score: he’s pissing him off! We learn (I'm repeating myself, I know!) that Debord was a student in the fall of 1942 at the Louis-Barthou high school in Pau where Pierre Bourdieu was a boarder, with Jacques Lasserre, friend of Bourdieu, who played a big role in my life. chaotic and nomadic. Jaenada is a tireless observer of everything that lives and moves around him.

In Dinard, the creperie episode is splendid. He remains Parisian, alas, designating what he passes through as “province”. When he leaves a wintry Hendaye, he says: “A madman was windsurfing at full speed on the black and rough ocean. There are all kinds of people in the world. » If I had been inspired I could have thought the same thing! Jacqueline Harispe is nevertheless his compass. His hexagonal odyssey is the map. In the room of the Mistral Hotel where the author finally stays, he writes: “I lean slightly, I look down, at the shards of glass in the gutter. One second forty-six. I look at my hand. I look down. I'm dizzy. » I felt it too, when I finished this moving novel.

Philippe Jaenada, “Casualty is a very beautiful thing”, novel, Éditions Mallet-Barrault, 22 euros, 478 p.