Chantal Ringuet wanted “to write a novel in which Alys Robi would only make one appearance.” Alys, we understand, did not leave much the choice to the one who, novelist, poet, literary translator, is nonetheless her real great-niece. The unpacking of personal papers and family photos of Alice Robitaille invested the author with a mission of biographer, between “new look” and “rehabilitation”. We follow Chantal Ringuet in this “colossal task [qu’elle] cannot accomplish without stumbling ”. Pro, she advances without difficulty, seasoned researcher, with the assured pen. Too much ? The feelings and sensations, ascribed to everyone, often go beyond the deduction that the facts allow: we read the novel first considered, in the footsteps of a drama lived in family. We follow in parallel the progress of a quest for truth which has everything of the drawer investigation of a thriller: “Sometimes, late at night, the enigma I was trying to solve gave rise to an irrepressible need to save her. . »Does she succeed? Mystery.
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