This year I listed Delphine de Vigan as a writer I wanted to read. I borrowed Nothing holds back the night from the library, but I was slightly hesitant. I had tried to read this book before, several years ago, but I had stopped after 20 or 30 pages. It was too heavy, too sad. Last time (and first time) I had read De Vigan was in 2018, with Based on a True Story. It was amazing. So this time I wanted to persevere… And eventually it was totally worth it!
Delphine de Vigan tells her mother’s life and death: she doesn’t shy away from all the hardships and the shadows of her life and of the surrounding family’s. The cover says it’s a novel, but the reader is hooked into the story from the start by Delphine’s voice. She needs to write this book to process the trauma of her mother’s suicide and try to understand her. The book is the result of her intense research among surviving siblings, but also analysis and doubts and hypothesis. There are many unexplained things in the book, and we don’t get to know what the author decided to modify to respect her family’s privacy. The addition of this word “novel” feels like a protection for her family but also a signal to the reader.
The book starts with Lucille’s death, which is actually a suicide. Lucille is Delphine’s mother, but also one of the daughters of a large, fanciful family. Lucile grew up among many brothers and sisters, at first in poverty but then in a rather wealthy environment. Lucille’s life story enfolds from childhood to troubled teen years to adult life marred with mental health issues. It really reads like a novel, but it is interrupted by shorter chapters about Delphine’s writing endeavor, her struggles and doubts.
It is difficult to describe how the book charm operates. I’m not a fan of books on dysfunctional families and family drama, but Delphine made me deeply care. Some people said that her family secrets are nobody’s business than her own, but I disagree after having read the book. She’s not trying to show off or settle scores. She wants to reflect on the truth and shares with us readers the difficulty to get to one truth, to understand a person even if and all the more as she’s close to you. I had assumed that it might be a bit voyeuristic and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable it is, and intimate, but as we see the reluctance and care that the writer has in writing the book itself, the voyeuristic part is avoided. It could have gone wrong in so many ways, but the result is to put to Delphine de Vigan’s credit.
Smithereens 