Catherine Girard-Audet | After Léa Olivier, here is Juliette Papillon

After enjoying immense success with his youth series The complicated life of Léa OlivierCatherine Girard-Audet turns to an older audience. You don’t shoot flowers to make them grow, her first young adult novel, comes out this Thursday, just in time for the day “August 12, I buy a Quebec book”. Discussion on this new adventure and its heroine, Juliette Papillon, a student who is experiencing a great challenge.

Veronique Larocque
The Press

The character of Léa Olivier has been greatly inspired by your life. Is this also the case for that of Juliette Papillon?

Yes. For me, it’s always easier to be inspired by things I’ve experienced. The early twenties, for a lot of people, is an identity crisis. We learn to know each other. We discover who we are by often making monumental mistakes. We are pushed to make decisions very quickly and we live experiences for the first time. I’m a good example of that, because I was totally wrong. [Comme Juliette], I had enrolled in art history, because I had to swarm to make a decision for my studies. It worried me a lot. Through that, I was going through a mega heartbreak of a super complicated long distance relationship.

Just like in the series The complicated life of Léa Olivier, friendship and love are omnipresent in this first volume of a trilogy. What do these themes mean to you?

Human ties are my inspiration. I couldn’t not write about it, because it’s what shapes me. That’s the most important thing in my life: my family, my siblings, my friends. To me, early 20s is a lot, a lot. I am inspired, for example, by my first apartment with my best friend. My more toxic first loves, I experienced them during this period as well. It’s a slightly more adult theme that I wanted to delve into.

You address in the novel the issue of mental health. We witness Juliette’s first panic attack. Can you tell us about this passage?

I’ve had panic attacks like I described in the novel, where you think you’re going to die, outright. Me, I took cold showers in the middle of the night because I couldn’t feel my limbs anymore and I didn’t know why. That’s what led me to consult. My first panic attacks came in my twenties. For me, it was super important to integrate them into the novel, because otherwise, I found that I was not being honest. I wanted to take this disorder out of taboo and make it accessible.

The title of the book is a phrase that a “very wise person” said to you. Why did these words mark you?

I have a lot of difficulty not controlling what is coming. Let’s go with the flow, it’s not really me. I’m learning to let go, but sometimes I fall back into my old habits. I say to myself: “What will happen next? » I often have to tell myself that we have to give the flowers time to grow and that we don’t pull on them to make them grow. It’s really a little principle that I try to remember. A principle that I slowly integrated into therapy.

Juliette Papillon attends university, Léa Olivier is now in CEGEP. Could the two heroines cross paths in a novel?

Oh my God. That would be funny, but I don’t think so. For me, it’s two different universes, it’s two different tones, it’s two different characters. It’s even two different Catherines. I think that Juliette, with hindsight, resembles me a little more than Léa. Léa is still more bubbly than I was. I had a more introverted side.

You have just finished writing the 16^e volume of The complicated life of Léa Olivier. Will this be the last?

It’s not the last. The end of such a long series is a process. I don’t want to write it too quickly. I don’t want to rush it, but I’m placing it. I live super contradictory feelings. On the one hand, I’m so grateful for everything that happened to me in relation to this character and this series. On the other hand, I’m excited to move on.

Statements have been abridged and condensed for clarity and conciseness.

You don’t shoot flowers to make them grow

Catherine Girard-Audet

Les Malins Editions

192 pages