“She is so surprised to see her mother leaning over her that she forgets to cry.”
We are certainly witnessing a narrative experiment. A successful idea, but one that we weren’t ready for at the beginning of the novel, and in fact, we read the first five pages twice. Written almost entirely in the second person singular, the book immediately conveys a sense of alienation, as if the narrator wanted to simultaneously care for the protagonist and distance himself from her. A vivid uneasiness runs throughout the story, alternating between moments of greater and lesser intensity.
The eponymous title of the protagonist, Viviane Élisabeth Fauville, says it all. Nothing else should have been said in the title, other than that seemingly empty and insignificant name, which hides secrets that no one will ever know. Viviane, a recent mother, deals in her own way with the separation from her husband and a difficult postpartum depression. Putting the pieces of her life back together becomes an impossible mountain to climb, even with the help of a psychiatrist. Following an urgently requested appointment with the latter, an event will occur that will spark the heart of the novel.
This, at least, is what emerges from Viviane’s memories, and we don’t know how much we can trust them, given that her memory is fragmented and distorted (by her own admission), and what she recounts could be the result of her depression or a normal self-defense mechanism.
It’s a novel in which memory doesn’t preserve the past: it continually rewrites it.
Why do we say this? Because the story also features a murder, but we can’t say who it is or who committed it, so as not to spoil the surprise. Following this crime, many characters (including our protagonist) will be investigated, arrested, and released by the police. Perhaps, however, more important than the search for the killer is reconstructing how the events actually unfolded.
Starting from this premise, we don’t like to call this book a thriller, in the classic sense of the term, but rather an anti-thriller, just as the protagonist is an anti-protagonist.
The clear and effective writing makes the read even more engaging.
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Julia Deck, Viviane Élisabeth Fauvillei, Adelphi, Milano, 2014
Original edition: Viviane Élisabeth Fauville, Les Éditions de minuit, Paris, 2012