Although Catherine Éthier deals with anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts through the professional tribulations of her alter ego, Corinne Gazaille, An extraordinary woman puts balm in the heart after two years of pandemic, two years of worrying about the unknown, two years of being hammered that everything will be fine. A little more and we’d thank her for procrastinating for so many years.
“I didn’t hope to do any good, but I thought the novel might appease some people, or just break the loneliness that is often associated with these thoughts that inhabit us and cross us, explains the novelist on the phone. It’s a completely different story that I had in mind when I signed the contract. So I wrote it during the pandemic with all the added anxiety that heightened my big thoughts of being a girl all alone in her living room. »
Approached seven years ago by Éditions Stanké, when she was writing for Urbaniai.e. before the success that his participation in F-CodeCatherine Éthier was thinking of a way to break the contract before she was reminded at the start of the pandemic that her editor, Marie-Ève Gélinas, had had time to have two children.
“I was terrified of writing a novel. I felt like I had nothing to say, so I pushed the moment away, still with great agility. I was the architect of my own misfortune. In the fall of 2020, I naively believed that I would have plenty of time to write, but I have never worked so much as during the pandemic. I was very, very close to my emotions, to my feelings; this novel is very close to me. It was written while screaming and opening my chest. »
A bit like this woman with pink flesh who, surrounded by birds and flowers like a Disney princess, offers us her entrails on the cover designed by tattoo artist and illustrator Char Bataille: “It’s a bit trash. It’s part of what I like, to surprise in the middle of a sentence, to release something a little heavy in a beautiful turn all in lace. »
She has it all
Columnist discovering fame with amazement, Corinne Gazaille makes everyone laugh with her witty words. All those who find her extraordinary are unaware, however, that the young woman is struggling to live, that she compulsively buys clothes that she will never wear and that the idea of filing her tax returns paralyzes her.
For the purposes of an article on a luxury cruise ship, Corinne travels to Asia with her grandfather’s urn in her luggage. Upon her arrival, she befriends Earl, a pathetic YouTuber who spends his days in a Disney park. Alas! All the opulent bling that is offered to Corinne will not prevent her from sinking further into depression.
True to the tone of the author’s chronicles, An extraordinary woman is carried by all the love that Catherine Éthier devotes to words, by her delight in creating images, by her art of arranging triviality and refinement. Teeming with references to popular culture, murderous descriptions and hilarious reflections, the novel, in which the author evokes without warning domestic violence and sexual assault, scratches the showbiz and the culture of emptiness. With a heavy heart, we rest the book on our knees at all times in order to slap our thighs.
“I imagine that a few people who go there are going to say: ‘Oh! My God! Too many words!” I am very at peace with all that I have been able to do. I worked very hard, but there, it no longer belongs to me. There are a lot of words, I wanted to pay the bills and be a little cynical because I don’t have time to expand in my three-minute columns. It was my little play space where I didn’t have to report to anyone, where I could allow myself all this madness with lots of winks and lots of love. I had a lot of fun despite the heaviness of the subject in some respects. »
Can you hear me ?
In addition to the pleasure, it must be said that it was anger that pushed Catherine Éthier to reveal a dark period of her life in this novel, which proves to be a call for lucidity and benevolence. This anger is the lack of empathy against which Hubert Lenoir had come up against Everybody talks about it after throwing that he wanted to “squeal on fire” which caused it.
“Hubert, we describe him as a character, we give him the same treatment, which I abhor, as Jean Leloup. We make them into clowns, we put them on stage, we laugh at them, we extract all the juice from them, then we swear by it. I felt in that little window that it was true, what he was telling us. Obviously, no one is ready to receive such a confidence. I had the impression of having experienced this scene several times in the timid little cries for help that I had launched around me. This reaction, the worst to have, had hurt me and had exacerbated my anger. »
In the same breath, she raged against advertising campaigns on mental health and suicide prevention. “I want to scream when I hear that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. These are sentences for people who don’t want to think about suffering. It’s very cosmetic, the space we give to these subjects. Every day, in Quebec, people of all ages and from all walks of life take their own lives. It’s terrifying ! We can’t talk about it every day because it would become too heavy. »
The novelist also says she is exasperated by this reflex of falling into positivism with “it’s going to be better, it’s a bad patch!” » and other empty phrases which, although pronounced with good heart, are for her « very violent and very disabling ».
“We are given the example of Lise Dion who wanted to commit suicide and who is now a millionaire. I’m sorry, but very few of us will become millionaires and very happy. Most people who are going badly will continue to live in their mess until their death because we are in a system that puts people in a bit of a mess. The responsibility for coping lies with individuals; the system will continue to be capitalist, we will continue to live in a misogynistic world. We are making small, small progress, but all of this means that it is not by dint of good will, by putting our hands in the dough, that everything will go well. »
As she does as godmother of the Regroupement des maisons pour femmes victims de violence conjugale, Catherine Éthier would like to remind you that, even if they are not equipped, those around them must be attentive, available, attentive, rather than to fear hearing the suffering of a loved one.
“It takes a lot of courage to formulate the words in your head, to accept that we have come to this, to tell someone. Often the person doesn’t want advice, they just want to be heard, drop that. Sometimes it’s the breath she needed to get better, to heal. I guess talking about it more will make it less scary. »