Crever mon fils
Crever mon fils
Guy Verville
French
ISBN : 2-89419-040-9 | 156 pages | $16.95 | 1994 | Herbes rouges
In French only. On sale at your bookseller or at
Clarisse is pregnant, but this second child is not wanted. She no longer loves Simon, who is trying to cling to the reassuring image of the heterosexual couple, impossible for them.
The pregnancy will be terrible and intoxicating, both for Clarisse, who falls in love with another man, and for Simon, who dares not say anything.
Behind Clarisse’s contempt for her husband, her pregnancy and her sexual intercourse with her neighbour, there is a strange desire : the determination to erase this cursed son in her – for she knows that he will look like Simon. Her delusions of murder will rub shoulders with her newfound pleasures ; her painful past, her suffocating life and her dark future will push her to want freedom without compromise and to cling to it with the violence of hope.
Seen from this angle, it looks like a frozen lake at the time of the ice jam. Nasty ice is piling up near Clarisse's hair. There is no wind; the river is deaf. There is only the smell of the banks to whip the nostrils. Clarisse tries to get up but the pain keeps her on the ground. She gives up. By keeping her eyes open, she can imagine a lot of things; by closing them, the images inherit smells and dizziness. She keeps crying.
Reviews
I love you, me neither
I love you, me neither… All the ambiguity of difficult love relationships is found in Guy Verville’s second novel, Crever mon fils, a harsh and violent book that does not spare any pain or pleasure. Clarisse and Simon are an unusual couple despite reassuring appearances : they had their first child, and Clarisse is pregnant again. But Simon prefers men and hardly approaches his wife who is deeply repulsed by the idea of her second pregnancy. Deeply overwhelmed by this conception that her mind cannot accept while her body naturally welcomes her, Clarisse nourishes desires of murder towards the embryo occupied to develop in her. Guy Verville presents, with a certain audacity for a male writer whose work is still short, the point of view of the woman, with so much interiority that the reader accepts, because they come from a true character, the hatred and disgust shown by Clarisse.
A writing that seems to imitate the very jolts of this turbulent life adds to the tension of a painful, pathetic novel, yet without free effects. Published in Quebec, this novel by Guy Verville is well worth crossing the Atlantic to come to us. He scratches appearances to find, underneath, the truth – always good to say, even and especially if it hurts.
Pierre Maury, Le Soir, Bruxelles (1995/02/15)
Dry as a whistle
Guy Verville delivers a novel as dry as a whistle, without compromise, written in a language without artifices, which sometimes reserves beautiful flashes of lightning. Especially when he leaves behind a somewhat clumsy poetry, undoubtedly added to soften a world of tears. is weighted with a dark richness where the daily tragedy is expressed as rarely in Quebec literature.
Isabelle Richer, Le Devoir, Montréal (1995/02/15)
