Ten days | Marie Laberge facing life

Ten daysthe new novel by Marie Laberge, is the diary of a woman who requested medical assistance in dying. But it is above all a book about “the harsh desire to live which does not die easily”, says the novelist and playwright, who will celebrate her 50th career in 2025.

“The most astonishing thing that happened to me with this book, and I hope it will be the same for the people who read it, is the intense feeling of being alive that I had while reading it. writing,” Marie Laberge tells us in a café on Avenue Laurier where she has been a regular for a very long time.

Being in the present moment, dispensing love without counting, not wasting time with reproaches, investing in your life: there are many essential things that are said in this short book which also speaks, with the lucidity that brings the end of life, of maternal love, of love in general and of desire.

To write this novel, which is anything but a collection of advice, but which provokes reflection, Marie Laberge felt that she had to let her protagonist speak, without projecting herself. “It’s not Marie facing her death. I never wanted to get out of her. I wanted her to reveal herself. » To achieve this, the author decided to write this diary which counts down the days until the final moment, never going back.

“I forbade myself to retouch passages, or move sections, or increase chapters. I said to myself: do like her, she won’t have time to correct it. » Except the typos, of course! But it was by far the “most honest” way to do it.

“When we talk about medical assistance in dying, most people imagine their own death. But they’re not the person who’s going to choose that. This is what haunted me: how do I know if I wash my cup on the last Wednesday? Is this a thought that comes? »

Don’t save yourself

Marie Laberge has a lot to say about medical assistance in dying. But Ten days is not a plea for or against the procedure, which she sees above all as a fascinating starting point for a novel. “Because it’s pure death.” » With the sand flowing into an hourglass and a known outcome. And it’s definitely not a book about death, she adds.

In any case, she hopes that each person who “goes in” will come out with the desire to live and to go “bravely”. “There’s no point in saving money!” It doesn’t even give us two more months of life, where’s the benefit? »

She says with a smile that for her part, she has been “on guard against wasting time and laziness” for a long time. “I am very determined to live. When I was little, I was already the same. I have always been tiring! »

Fifty years of career

Marie Laberge will celebrate her 50 years of artistic life in 2025: she was 25 years old when she left the Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Quebec, in 1975. “I played in the theater, I was already writing, but I never told person. Fifty years is more than a number, it’s a life. » The author, who will be 74 at the end of November, can’t believe how quickly everything happened.

It’s worth saying so! And she’s not thinking about retirement at all. “It’s not a retirement job, we’re supposed to get worse with age!” Well, there is the risk of rambling, obviously. It’s very difficult to last. I spent the first 20 years of my career trying to break through, and the last 20 trying to last! »

During all these decades, one person has always been by her side: the actress Denise Gagnon, her best friend, who died in August and whom she supported through illness for a year. “I have trouble talking about it in the past tense. » Not only did Denise Gagnon act in his plays, but she was his first reader, for all his books.

“She had time to read this one because it’s been a year since it was finished. She had classified him among the good ones. »And is she happy with it? “If only for the joy it brought me, yes. But I wouldn’t show it if I wasn’t sure the result was exactly what I wanted. »

Marie Laberge is preparing to return to the book fairs, of which she is the undisputed queen, happy to meet the public again after the hours of solitude imposed by writing. When we tell her that with such a subject, she risks welcoming many tears – this was the case even during this frank and intense interview, which oscillated between laughter and emotion – she smiles gently.

“It’s okay, my arms are big. I’m capable,” she said… opening her arms. For her, this is even good news.

“That means I’m still in the essentials. »