No one will ever be named in this story. Doubtless because the victim, the culprit, as well as all those around them and who, through their actions, also bear their share of responsibility in the crime which is at the heart of the novel, could have a thousand faces as what is described is a situation that is repeated too often.
With Offensesthe Frenchwoman Constance Debré begins a new cycle that breaks away from the autobiographical inspiration of her previous novels (Name, Love Me Tender, playboy). But behind the lines, the positions of this former lawyer are drawn in broad strokes, and she goes so far as to write that “the law is a farce”.
We are here in a city like there are so many in France. The exterior decor, we will only discover it a little later because there is first this cluttered apartment, where we land from the first pages; an elderly woman is lying on the ground, lying in a pool of blood. She received 10 stab wounds.
It turns out that the one who stabbed her was her young neighbor. The only one who helped her with her shopping, the only one to say “that he liked her”, while her own son didn’t even speak to her when he passed her in the street.
We quickly learn that this woman was brutally murdered for money. But the thread of the ball that unfolds in parallel to the trial raises a fundamental question: can we recognize that an aggressor can be above all a victim?
Because the portrait that emerges is that of a young man who blames himself for having believed for a moment that he could escape a toxic environment, his dysfunctional family, the dealers to whom he owed money after his little brother stole drugs from them. Who believed that another life could be accessible to him, a life where he would work to earn a living rather than waiting for his allowances to be deposited. But “perhaps there are people for whom it is not possible”, writes Constance Debré with a surgical coldness and this telegraphic style which make her pen so unique.
In a fiery diatribe against the legal system, she denounces a justice that is done for the well-born – those who, in her opinion, will never know the lack of money or the lack of love, or even “how does it come the evil “. And boldly takes us out of our comfort zone, to think about good, evil, the fine line between the two, the legal definition of a crime and collective responsibility when it comes to convicting those who are named as the culprits.
Offenses
Constance Debre
flammarion
128 pages