The French writer Marie-Helene Lafon arrives for the first time in Italy with the novel Story of the son (Fazi Editore), in bookshops from 7 June and winner of the Renaudot prix. Originally from Auvergne, she has dedicated all of her writings to her native region.
This time it tells the relationship between a mother, Gabrielle, and her son André, raised by the woman’s sister, Helene. The story takes place in the nineteenth century, declined in the various decades of the century during which the mystery of the identity of the boy’s father is staged. With a notable leap in time, we discover who the man is, now a successful 47-year-old lawyer in Paris: Paul Lachalme, the son of a hotelier, was sent to boarding school as a young man. There, suffering from bronchitis, he meets the thirty-year-old nurse Gabrielle who takes care of him.
In 1950 we find André now an adult and married, after a parenthesis as a partisan, but in the meantime the past and the present are intertwined, revealing ever new events and background, as the writer tells Vanity Fair.
The family is one of the most respected institutions in Italy. For your debut, what do you think will conquer the Italian public?
«The story of the son is above all a story of families, since they are two family clans who did not know they were linked before the disclosure of a secret. It seems to me that family stories and the very notion of family secrets are so universal, transversal, shared that the novel should find an echo in Italy ».
Its story traces 100 years of family events, like an emotional roller coaster between ups and downs. Do you agree that those who love us the most are the ones capable of making us suffer most deeply?
“Your question touches the epicenter of the story and I can only confirm your intuition, without superfluous comments.”
The beauty of a work sometimes it lies in authenticity. For example, have you had the opportunity to hear stories of your ancestors from any of your relatives? Has anyone conveyed it in the novel?
“The Son’s Story is based entirely on a family story that was entrusted to me by a reader of my novels so that I could tell it. It was 2012 and it took me years of incubation and work for the book to finally exist ».
Almost 20 years after her literary debut, she returned to win the prix Renaudot albeit in a different category. Are you a source of more pressure or does it seem more like a circle that closes?
«I experienced this award above all as a recognition of the loyalty and trust shared for twenty years with the Buchet Chastel publishing house. I hope that the circle of these two decades does not close and that we continue this work together. We are working on it and a new book should be published in 2023 ».
Would you like a film or TV adaptation of this novel of yours? And if so, who would you entrust it to? Or would you like to write the script yourself?
“I’d like a film adaptation. I had this experience for my novel, L’annonce, published in 2009, and adapted for the big screen by Julie Lopes Curval, and I would gladly do it again. On the other hand, I feel very incapable of writing a screenplay and I would let the professionals work ».
Which family sagas of literature remember with greater enthusiasm?
“I have to admit I’ve read very few family sagas but obviously I loved The Rougon-Macquarts by Emile Zola and also by The human comedy by Honorè de Balzac ».
You started writing as an adult, but as a girl did you ever put your thoughts in black and white?
«Before 1996 I have never written almost anything, neither a diary, nor flashes of a novel, nor adolescent poems. No doubt because the resistances to writing, of various kinds, were too strong and blocked me. I only gave up when I was 34 ».
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Source: Vanity Fair
