The front door is ajar, Black, the 12-year-old beauceron, welcomes us. Valérie finishes getting ready in her room. On the kitchen table there are tea, coffee and a cherry pie. Through the bay windows, the sun rises over Burgundy. We hear his footsteps on the metal staircase, sweater and dark pants: “I have to tell you that I don’t like being photographed at all. I have always preferred shadow to light,” smiles the former still photographer, co-writer and wife of Claude Lelouch. Here, on the land of her childhood, she feels peaceful. This house on the edge of the forest, purchased three years ago, shelters his solitude, necessary for writing.
It was there that she finished writing “Tata”, her fourth novel, snuggled up on a sofa, the computer propped up on her legs, a cup of coffee at hand and a few words scribbled on a notebook. Two and a half years of work, during which she was able to count on the support of her husband: “We spend our days exchanging our ideas… I tell him everything about my characters and he does too. Just yesterday he told me: ‘I had two incredible ideas for my next film!’ On the other hand, we have a deal: we tell each other everything but we don’t repeat anything to anyone. » When she is in Burgundy and he is in Normandy, they call each other several times a day. “We encourage each other enormously, I admire his constant wonder, he always has a thousand projects. I have a solitary job, and he moves mountains every day, taking with him an entire army of technicians and cameramen; I would be incapable of doing what he does,” explains Valérie.
“With Claude [Lelouch]we complement each other, there is never any judgment”
She walks every day with Black on the banks of the Arroux which runs through Gueugnon, the town of her youth where her parents live. Gueugnon, its factories and forges, which became the champion of steel in the 1960s, is the setting for his book. From the first lines, we meet Agnès, 38 years old, a director devastated by the departure of her husband, her favorite actor, for a younger actress. Agnès votes left, wears a medal of the Virgin, is the daughter of a Jewish violinist and a Catholic pianist. While her heartache makes her sink, she receives a call from the gendarmerie telling her that her aunt Colette has just died in her sleep. Impossible, she already died three years ago. “There’s no such thing as dying again. » Why did Colette, such a discreet shoemaker with old-fashioned clothes and the first fan of the FC Gueugnon football team, make people believe that she was dead? Valérie explains: “Agnès returns to Gueugnon to recognize the body, she will replay her aunt’s life and she will take her destiny back into her own hands. » Agnès also rediscovers the reassuring gentleness of her childhood friends, whom she had abandoned.
Work notebooks, press clippings from the time… materials for the development of his latest novel.
Paris Match
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© Baptiste Giroudon
Valérie left Gueugnon at 19 for Paris. Later, she moved to Trouville with the father of her children. His other life will be with Claude Lelouch: “We don’t have the same story. He’s a Parisian guy, I grew up in a small provincial town. We complement each other, there is never any judgment. It’s sweet to never feel judged,” confides the writer. Their meeting is worthy of a film: thanks to Valérie’s pen, it all started the day she published a letter in a local newspaper. Not a love letter, a movie buff’s letter. Claude will read it and want to find the one that describes his work so well. Love at first sight, they have now loved each other for eighteen years. Is it easy to share the light? Previously unknown, Valérie is stopped in the street by readers. “We are often asked if our success is compatible,” she explains, “if there is no jealousy. I couldn’t compete with my husband because we don’t do the same job. I am not a director; If I was, things would probably be more complicated, fortunately we don’t box in the same category. »
During one of his Parisian signing sessions, Claude surprised him by coming to kiss him. He had tears in his eyes when he saw the crowd waiting for his wife. During our interview, he calls her: “Turn on France Info, they’re going to talk about your book! » Valérie bursts out laughing. Nothing predestined her for this career: “I started at 32, it took me more than fifteen years to write my first book, ‘The Forgotten of Sunday’, I was 48 and I had just finished the script from ‘Bastard, we love you’ with Claude. I sent the manuscript to Albin Michel without expecting anything in return,” she remembers. Immediate success: 13 literary prizes. She wants to stop but her readers beg her to do “another one”. It will be “Change the water of flowers”, which will win the Maison de la presse prize and the Pocket Book Readers prize, and will top sales in more than 60 countries.
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“I am aware that what I am experiencing is quite rare”
Success impresses him. She thinks she has run out of inspiration, but her daughter, Tess, encourages her. It will be “Three”. In each novel, there is the sea of Cassis or the beaches of Normandy. In “Tata”, there is also the sound of church bells, the scent of peonies, a Steinway piano, a cemetery, the feast of All Saints so as not to forget the dead and audio cassettes on which a woman delivers his life. “Everyone should tell their stories on audio cassettes to leave a trace,” underlines Valérie. “Since my second book,” she continues, “my life has turned into a fairy tale, I am aware that what I am experiencing is quite rare. Of course, if I write novels it’s also because I want to be admired by Claude, I want to impress him. If one day he leaves, I will stop writing, because he is my driving force. » In her attic, she stored copies of her works translated into all languages.
Now that the fourth is finished, she has promised herself that she will realize another dream: learning the piano. It is already installed in the living room, in Burgundy, where Claude likes to join her. This summer, they reread Pagnol. She reads aloud to Claude, their ritual since forever. For several weeks, she has felt “orphaned” by her characters. So, she already has other projects: adapting “The Forgotten of Sunday” for the theater with her daughter and daughter-in-law, Salomé. She also talks with Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who is working on an adaptation of “Changer l’eau des fleurs” for the cinema. Will Claude one day adapt one of his books? “He would dream of doing it but he doesn’t want to, because he can’t help but change all the stories… And that would be a real cause for argument! »
“Tata”, Valérie Perrin, ed. Albin Michel, 640 pages, 23.90 euros
© ed. Albin Michel
