A first novel for adolescents, around thirty pages, released in May 2024, caught our full attention. This book Save Dad de Blanche Martire is almost an aptonym, except that Martire is written with an “i”. The young 28-year-old author was published by Le Calicot on a rather calm azure blue cover, enhanced with a three-petaled daisy faded with “i love you” has “no way“.
Reception agent at the Marseille Opera, the young Blanche Martire wrote about intimacy, hypersensitivity, school bullying and received a prize for her contemporary poems. The author wrote alone “Save Dad“, inspired by her experiences. This book was for her, a real discovery of writing, the passion to find her unique Martire style. The whole story takes place over a single day, very intense and condensed. The short side brings this deep emotion which captivates the reader Where the problem lies is that the cards are shuffled, the roles are reversed. The child becomes his father’s psychologist and the father who does not have a name, becomes himself. confided like a child, a parentification of sorts.
Marguerite’s story is punctuated by her father who often telephones her, reveals secrets and problems to her. The girl carries this psychological burden and rewinds by tangling the brushes. With difficulty, she emancipates herself… “We feel that she understands, maybe she will decide for herself, Blanche shyly confides to us at her stand. She hasn’t yet found what she wants to do in life, but there is this momentum, something mysterious that has been unlocked.
Without wanting to give a bad image, I like this child therapist, there is no idea of narcissistic perversity or the caricature of a villain, but rather a psychological profile. What is touching is that the editor recognized himself in this father…“And bingo! The last line of the book is an open ending.”My head is full, my future is opening up, my year is taking shape… It’s already good. That’s already it.“
