While browsing the fifth novel by Nathalie Babin-Gagnon, Mary’s Choices, one cannot avoid seeing in it, in several respects, the influence of the writer Elena Ferrante and her prodigious friends. We find neither the themes, nor the political dimension, nor the same narrative breath; However, we detect a similar desire to bear witness to an era and the dramas and anger that constitute it through the friendship uniting two women who are opposites, destined to navigate between the joys, tragedies and surprises of life. in the hand.
“Elena Ferrante acts as background music in my novel, indicates the author, joined by The duty. I seek to immerse myself in his intelligence, to emulate his ability to put the narrative ahead of the form, to lead a grandiose story from beginning to end. Men are not afraid to name their inspirations. Ferrante says it herself: it’s time to create a genealogy, a sisterhood of women who inspire each other. »
Like the Italian novelist, Nathalie Babin-Gagnon starts from the intimate — the passage from childhood to adulthood — to bear witness to something greater; here, war—the one we watch from afar—and which forces us to choose a side: that of powerlessness or action.
As a teenager in Val-d’Or, Lauréanne is entangled in an unattractive relationship with an older man who secures her marriage, children, comfort and utter boredom. This lack of attraction is nothing compared to what she experiences daily with her parents. Then, Lauréanne meets Marie. His destiny hitherto agreed rocks.
Ambitious and generous, Marie pushes her to excel in class so that they can go to CEGEP together, then to university in Montreal, to study medicine and law, taste freedom, love, laugh, see and live big. . Shortly after their arrival, Marie makes a choice that will upset their plan: to keep the child growing inside her, born of a fleeting and sordid relationship.
I find it interesting to show that historical events can mark us
for life, to transform our relationship with the world and our outlook on others, on what is foreign to us. Through the reflections of fictional characters, we can question our own experiences and feelings.
From her first babbling, little Loutfia upsets the convictions, aspirations and relationships of the two women who raise her. As a child, she turned out to be intelligent, endearing and insatiably curious. As a teenager, she will be obstinate, categorical, committed to causes greater than herself. This devotion and this hatred of injustice will lead her on perilous paths, in refugee camps on the outskirts of Syria, then between the clutches of the fighters of the Islamic State group.
In Montreal, the two friends witness, mortified, violence, terror, the unknown… Until Marie, once again, imposes another irremediable decision on Lauréanne…
Extreme altruism
The character of Loutfia is inspired by Kayla Mueller, an American aid worker kidnapped in Aleppo in 2013 as she was leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital. “I started the novel the day after Trump was elected. The surrounding uncertainty reminded me of this landmark story. In all the ugliness and cruelty of the world, this inspiring woman has chosen the gift of herself,” underlines the writer.
This gift of self and total devotion to others have fascinated Nathalie Babin-Gagnon for many years. It is true that renouncing one’s own interests, one’s comfort or one’s freedom is a phenomenon of rare occurrence in our modern societies. “Altruistic characters always hold my attention in cinema and in literature — I think of the film Breaking the Wavesby Lars von Trier (1996), where a woman donates her body to save the man she loves, or even Amen, by Costa-Gavras (2002), where a man goes to the concentration camps during the Holocaust to bear witness to the atrocities. I wanted to dig under the envelope of these heroes who choose the ultimate sacrifice. It’s an extreme that seemed more interesting to me than radicalization. »
With the desire to complicate her three protagonists – all fundamentally good -, the writer makes them barometers of the society in which they evolve and of its contradictions, in particular by accentuating their prejudices as well as their reactions during moments of rupture and fears. collective.
Through them, the novelist revisits the historical and political moments that made up the nations of Quebec and the West, including the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, the massacre at Polytechnique, the student strike of 2012 as well as the reception of Syrian refugees. and the adoption of Law 21 on the prohibition of the wearing of religious symbols. “I find it interesting to show that historical events can mark us for life, transform our relationship with the world and our outlook on others, on what is foreign to us. Through the reflections of fictional characters, we can question our own experiences and feelings. »
With this fifth novel, Nathalie Babin-Gagnon is betting on acceptance and tolerance, towards oneself, towards what we do not know, but also towards those who are dearest to us, whom we often forget to perceive. complexity, benevolence and love.