“I’m stepping out of my comfort zone. » Author of three-part practical guides to encourage citizens to rethink democracy (Dare to get involved in local political life And Dare to get involved in transforming democracy published by Rue de l’échiquier with a double paper and then digital version) – after having started twelve years ago, when retirement arrived, in writing biographies of individuals and institutions and having been a candidate for elections municipal elections in Parthenay in 2014 then in the departmental elections the following year – the essayist Christian Proust set himself a literary challenge that he took great pleasure in taking on: releasing his first novel, The silence is water – Crime in Deux-Sèvres (Geste Editions). His fourteenth work.
“The preservation of fresh water is a subject that worries me”
“It’s a dark, ecological and democratic novel, I ask questions about rural policies and the preservation of fresh water, it’s a subject that worries me”, underlines the author from La Peyratte. Like the Thouet which crosses it, the town to the east of Parthenay will be the setting for this work prefaced by Nicolas Gamache, elected ecologist in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region and mayor of Châteliers en Gâtine.
“I loved this building game”
On the plot side, “I wanted to make truth with falsehood to talk about reality”, continues Christian Proust. So here we are in 1988, the year in which Ana, daughter of refugees, hydrologist engineer, environmental activist and live-action entertainer of the local theater troupe disappeared after going to swim in the Thouet.
In our very real world, at that time, Christian Proust was one of the two leaders of this same troupe. “We will follow the destiny of four women, over three different temporalities, who have one thing in common: this inevitability to preserve their freedom at the risk of their lives”concludes the author, who claims to have “loved this exercise, this construction game to take a different look” through the writing of his first novel.
“Silence is water – Crime in Deux-Sèvres” (Geste Éditions), by Christian Proust, available in bookstores. Author signings: Saturday May 25 at 11 a.m. at the La Peyratte association hall then from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at L’Antidote in Parthenay, Saturday 1er June at the Les Halles bookstore in Niort (10 a.m. – 12 p.m.) and Saturday June 8 at the Hyper U in Parthenay (10 a.m. – 12 p.m. then 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.).
