A village perched on a harsh “solana” (adret) in the Vicdessos valley. As in many others, in Ariège or in the Pyrenees in general, life there has always been harsh. So much so that, especially after the Great War, the country was not able to retain many people. A dull future pushed almost all young people to leave for the plains and big cities, where they became employees, workers, customs officers or civil servants. Enough to wait without worrying about retirement.
For her second and recent novel, “The Secret of the Mountains”, Élise Valéro chooses as a setting a small family universe that is dear to her. She has long gleaned the memory, tried – with her romantic taste for surprising destinies – to unravel the ordinary intertwining of enmities or thwarted loves, of secret passions or generosity, which characterize any community, however tiny.
Aggregate of Classical Letters
Alternating the past and present of the story, the author from Pissos, who has already enjoyed success with “Les Maîtres de la heath” (read “Sud Ouest” from November 29, 2023), has therefore reconnected with the pleasure of write: weave a plot, portray characters accurately, articulate a dialogue and sometimes let her pen as an associate professor of classics nourished in the periods of ancient orators and the Latin scansions, but also a fan of certain English novels or American cinema.
A meeting with Élise Valéro, around this “local novel”, will be organized on Friday December 6, at 6 p.m., at the Pissos media library (05 58 08 92 05 or 05 58 04 41 40 or [email protected])
(1) 288 pages. Information: https://tdo-editions.fr
