Does Julia Kerninon really touch the ground?

Tuesday books - Aude Robert-Tissot

The young French author has just published a new book on motherhood, Touching the firm term, published by Editions L'Iconoclaste. An intimate, sincere and courageous autobiography. The whirlwind of emotions that is motherhood appears, however, as a sub-subject in the face of the importance of her love affair. L'impudique Touching down arouses both admiration and annoyance.

A friend who was aware of my love for Julia Kerninon's novels immediately called me out on her latest: «A book about motherhood, you'll love it!» And he was only half right.

Julia Kerninon's narcissistic sincerity

Giving birth is by no means a smooth ride. Gone are the idyllic tales of our grandmothers, replaced today by the harsh, violent realities facing women. Gone are the injunctions of the perfect mother, devoted to her children, her husband and her work, condemned to respect the impossible balance of these different roles. Personal development books about the imperfect mother are now bestsellers, and all the better for it!

However, the subject of motherhood appears here only in snatches, in a story that deals rather with the loves of a woman unlike any other, different, in other words, a writer. Julia Kerninon's book is a sincere self-portrait, albeit, it must be said, sprinkled with narcissism. Perhaps this is the problem with this autobiography: it's not easy to immerse oneself in such an intimate life when it's not fiction.

When universality fails

And yet, it's not impossible for shamelessness to work. But in this case, the multiple «I's» are transformed into a «we's», the subject is surpassed and the reader can identify with the narrator. Fortunately, it's highly likely that a large number of mothers will find themselves reading Touching the firm term, When they discover that this author once experienced the most unavowable feeling in our society: the desire to leave one's marital life and children behind in order to find oneself.

But how many women can identify with this writer's life? This gifted, tormented and, above all, longed-for author? In her book, she describes her life suspended in literature, and all the instability that seems almost necessarily to flow from it. The female characters in her previous novels were also out of the ordinary and fascinatingly complex, but they were figments of her imagination. In this reading, we are plunged into the indiscreet life of a very real woman. A woman with a sublime way with words, but who, in spite of herself, feeds certain clichés of the writer: she smokes, she drinks, she does cocaine, she cheats, she loves several men at once.

Despite a few uncomfortable moments in the face of this display of intimacy, the narrative flows smoothly and follows perfectly the thread of introspective thought, memories and ambiguous emotions that a woman can experience at the dawn of a birth. A mother filled with doubts and the fear of losing herself as a woman. The writing is as intense as Julia Kerninon and her words as subtle as her contact with terra firma, when she actually touches it.

«He's named after the saint of lost causes, lost things, and I was sure I was both when I met him. He found me. He made me two children who seem so beautiful to me that I often feel a deep inner pity not for people who don't have children, but for those who have had children other than these. He calls me his marvel. He says, It's pathetic, even when I caress myself, I think of you.. After an evening spent talking to each other, he goes to bed first and calls me from our bed under the roof to tell me tenderly, You are requested on the second floor, Madame Kerninon.. He's the man of my life, of all my days, of all my nights.»

Write to the author: aude.robert-tissot@leregardlibre.com

Illustration: Thierry Kuntzel, The Waves. 2003 Musée d'arts de Nantes/C. Clos and M. Roynard.

Julia Kerninon
Touching down
Editions L'Iconoclaste
2022
115 pages

Order the book