If this double suspense is very skillfully constructed, the singularity and strength of this novel lie above all in its humor which is nestled both in the hilarious description of the duo and in the particularly tasty writing.
Paul Colize, “Murder on Rue Blanche”, Hervé Chopin, 312 p.
SOCIAL
Slice of life
Jeanne is a social worker for an association. She goes to people in great economic, psychological and other difficulties. While watching over her grandfather, this fragile thirty-year-old strives to live like a girl of her age, with her more or less disappointed friends and loves. Following the fire which devastated the apartment where he lived with his mother, who proved incapable of taking care of him, Aldo was placed in a foster home. An intelligent and determined teenager, he is taken with a liking by the person in charge.
In this sensitively written first novel, the author, a psychologist for children and young adults, enters with finesse into the heads of her two heroes.
Suzanne Aubinet, “Between two shores”, Parla Éditions, 177 p.
EXILE
Parallel destinies
Under the Argentine dictatorship, a humanist lawyer is assassinated in a Buenos Aires park in front of her daughter and a man who was discreetly in love with her. The little girl is taken in secret by her father to France, to the Arcachon basin where he becomes an ice merchant, while Andrés becomes friends with the sister of the deceased. Everyone will try in their own way to rebuild themselves.
Prolific author of books always full of beautiful emotions, Frank Andriat follows these parallel destinies marked by absence and lack.
Frank Andriat, “Les Silences de Buenos Aires”, FDeville, 183 p.
FAMILY
An anchorage on the Belgian coast
Does every life deserve to be told? It was at the suggestion of a man she knew when he was a child who came to spend the summer at L’Etoile de Mer, the boarding house run by her parents not far from Ostend, that Clémentine retraced the his. Adopted at 3 years old by a couple whose husband came from the Lebensborn of Wégimont, this virtuoso pianist never forgot her maritime roots to which she never stopped returning. In his fair and touching first novel, the founder of the publishing house Pré aux Sources brings to life many rich and endearing characters.
Bernard Gilson, “The Star of the Sea”, 180th editions, 299 p.
POETRY
In search of Jeanne Dielman
-Directed in 1975 by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, Jeanne Dielman was named the best film of all time by the British Film Institute. This film features the mother of a teenager, played by Delphine Seyrig, in her daily activities (cooking, washing, cleaning), also welcoming men into her home.
The young author of this first poetic collection transcribes in short sentences the facts and gestures of this “Piéta Slow” through her own sensitivity, thus translating the emotion they give her.
Clarisse Michaux, “Gayness amazes me”, Éditions Hooray, 71 p.
AMOUR
Letters to a “Woman-Queen”
Every morning, at dawn, the narrator writes a letter to a certain Hanna H discovered on the internet and with whom he is madly in love. Throughout his missives, he recounts moments of his life which began in an unusual way since it was the result of a woman’s request to a married man and father of a family whom he met by chance. And that he himself will only know late. After a few missed meetings, the letter writer and his beloved finally see each other. But for what tomorrow? First mysterious novel, punctuated with verses by Éluard, by the director of the Maison de la Francité in Brussels.
Donald George, “For a Queen’s Desire”, 180th editions, 203 p.
FUTURISTIC TALE
A closed world
In this futuristic tale, the inhabitants are called by their occupation: the Young Waitress, the Ferryman, the Gravedigger… And everyone can request a Dismissal, that is to say confront the person whose place they are seeking. The new arrival thus becomes the Adventurer. If the Writer is hostile to him, it is because the former Young Blacksmith left, thirty years previously, with the Young Baker with whom he was in love. What happened to her? Tension gradually rises in this community from where love seems banished and whose members no longer know the Old Language.
A first novel as astonishing as it is coherent in its desire to create a specifically literary world which brings into play feelings which are indeed ours.
Claire Mathot, “The Season of Silence”, Actes Sud, 170 p.
NARRATIVE
Family traces
Book after book, Liégeois Bernard Gheur (born in 1945) explores his family genealogy. Following in the footsteps of his father John (died in 1980), a cheerful man who was a long-time river owner, he unfolds the history of his paternal and maternal families throughout the 20th century. He found letters from his grandparents dating back to his early days and, above all, from his mother Paula to his sister Jeanne, written in particular during the war. She is worried about her husband who is a prisoner and who, when released, joins the Secret Army.
The author also has photo albums from Canada, where his father was born and spent his early years. A very fine tribute to what constitutes it.
Bernard Gheur, “La Grande Génération”, Weyrich, 270 p.
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