A bruised daughter, a father at the twilight of his life. A failed relationship that we try to repair before it’s too late. Gaëlle Josse’s novel is painful and beautiful.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
It’s a classic in literature: the death of a parent, father or mother, as a pretext to revisit family dynamics, childhood, inheritance… Nothing particularly original. Then that’s what the author does with it.
And Gaëlle Josse – whom we loved so much This morninga sensitive account of a burnout feminine – actually something beautiful.
This is the story of Isabelle, a documentary filmmaker, who returns to the family village, in the shadow of the mountains, to spend a few days in the house where she grew up. She finds her father there, who has always lived there and who spent his life accompanying walkers in the mountains. A silent, distant, sometimes violent man, with whom the relationship has always been difficult. A solitary man who seemed much happier in his mountain than surrounded by his family. The mother, now deceased, has always been the buffer between her husband and her children. But this time, she will not be there to ensure a certain harmony.
Isabelle is full of apprehension when she arrives at the station where her brother is waiting for her. This brother who was always there for their parents when she moved away, made his life away from them.
Emotions jostle. The house brings out childish terrors in Isabelle. But the father has changed. He is more vulnerable. And one day, he reveals the secret that built him, young man. And who, ultimately, prevented him from having a real relationship with his children. His confidences erase nothing, of course, but they help to understand.
No, it’s not a superficial story with a Disney happy ending. It is a mature and sensitive story that combines intimate history and History with a capital H. The writing is both sober and magnificent. Once again, Gaëlle Josse managed to grab us, and make us experience great emotion.
fathers night
Gaelle Josse
Black on white
192 pages