Sandrine Perroud releases her first novel

Tuesday books - Jonas Follonier

Active in the popularization of science, a keen journalist and music fan in her spare time, Sandrine Perroud, a thirty-seven year old woman from Lausanne, has just released her first book. The spirits published by Editions de l'Aire. Her first novel, and the intelligence that emanates from this woman when you talk to her, herald a promising literary career.

Mélanie is twenty-one years old, and her parents have decided to undergo assisted suicide together following her father’s cancer diagnosis and her mother’s inability to go on living without him. With Radio Nostalgie playing in the background, tea room In Lausanne, where she works as a waitress, Mélanie is trying to come to terms with her grief. She’s trying to come to terms with it—which is no small feat. Everything now reminds her of the dead or the undead. The city is populated by spirits—the very ones that the young girl she once was used to ward off in her nightmares. She then begins a relationship with a young man, David, who, in a way, will serve as both a mirror and a healer for her.

The protagonist shares some similarities with the author, which we learn about thanks to the Vevey-based publishing house. She is a woman for whom writing is important, just as her studies in literature at the University of Lausanne were. But does that mean we can call this a semi-autobiographical story? «All literature necessarily bears the mark of the author and his or her life», ", Sandrine Perroud replies, «but The spirits, », that's not exactly my story." Not directly? «I wrote this book to try to understand grief, since I’ve experienced it myself, and that’s what inspired me to write my first novel. To understand all this violence—the violence in the world as well, the violence in the workplace. To understand what we go through.»

What we go through: and for good reason—the novel is set in Lausanne, but it also draws on the current events of a particular period marked by terrorist attacks. «A colleague told me, “I feel like everyone is going to die.” That statement really stuck with me. It’s hard to talk about the pain you feel when you lose a loved one. And not just in Switzerland, for that matter. My character is young; he has very few tools to cope with all of this.» Writing will be one of them, and imagination, as we come to understand as we read on. Imagination—a human faculty that has something magical about it—is a subject that Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about; Sandrine Perroud confides that, just like Albert Camus, Sartre inspires her in her everyday life.

In terms of style, The spirits is in a classic, understated style, reminiscent of the A collection of short stories by Antoine Vuille, recently published by Editions L’Age d’Homme. The fluidity of the prose complements the raw honesty of the narrative without detracting from its gravity. The author tells us, in fact, that she has reread many 19th-century fantasy short stories^th century during its creation process, including Hair by Maupassant. This genre inspired him to write a story in which we follow certain objects. «Other than that, I devoured Paul Auster's novels, which often feature writers who write"», the new novelist told me with a laugh. A technique that is, of course, central to her book.

And it was a most surprising delight for me, as a reader, when, at the end of the novel, I discovered the writing of David—an author in his own right—whose style I preferred ten times over that of Mélanie. The character was already so delightful; his writing was just as much so. I realized right then that I was dealing with a book that I would go on to say I had loved very much. When I shared this with Sandrine Perroud, she told me that this “writing within the writing” had come about automatically and spontaneously, even though I’d assumed she’d worked on those passages even more than on the others. In any case, a literary work belongs to its readership; the same goes for its interpretation. Read for yourself:

«I’m losing my mind writing to you like this, too. You’ll say it’s already better than when I talk to you out loud. But I think back to our video game nights. To our nights hanging out with friends. To our long bike rides. To our hikes in the mountains. To our swims in that damn lake. Why did you go swimming so far out? What were you trying to prove? I miss you so much.»

A few other powerful themes run through The spirits. The age-old Aristotelian theme of anger driving action—for example, writing. Motherhood and its impossibility—one of the novel’s central themes. And French chanson, which has this unique quality of speaking directly to our lived experience. It’s an excellent idea to link the theme of grief to a context in which Johnny Hallyday, France Gall, and Le Matin paper—of the three, it is the one whose demise we will regret the least.

By the way, why “Editions de l’Aire”? «It’s a publishing house with deep local roots that champions an eclectic vision of literature. I think L’Aire is very wary of becoming insular. So I was extremely happy to learn that I would be published by this publishing house. It has the foresight to constantly reinvent itself, notably by giving new authors a chance.» Michel Moret and his team certainly did a good job.

Sandrine Perroud
The spirits
Editions de l'Aire
2019
114 pages

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Jonas Follonier for Le Regard Libre