Et la joie de vivre by Gisèle Pelicot (Book review)

Really pleased I read this in French: this is such an important memoir and one that I think will stand the test of time.

This book is a great testament to what happens to a person in a crisis. What happens to a family…. and then how to reconcile wider societal issues embedded in a personal tragedy. It’s a very relational book.

But amongst the expansive view I also really liked the anchored interiority of the narrative: how much we get to interact with Gisèle and her past and her childhood. It comes across as honest, but not raw. She’s direct and clearheaded, but also willing to show her oscillations, her confusion. The trust that she builds in herself is fundamental and admirable.

There’s a real sense of generational trauma and underlying issues and narratives and echoes from the past which I think works really well too. There’s a context here. A context of rape and abuse that didn’t start with these crimes, but also a context of a long life lived.

As well as a story about a trial, it’s also a story about a family, about being a woman, about being a mother, about being a wife.

I also respect the fact that it doesn’t shy away from some of the fault lines that have opened up in the family since all this has come to light, because it’s very important to also give space to that as well. The difference between her and her daughter’s reactions is thoughtfully explored and I imagine painful to talk about.

You do really admire her courage and her coping mechanisms and strategies. I think the writer who wrote this with her has also done a really good job on the language: there’s lots of stark and clear imagery.

I think everyone knows the story of what happened to her: I actually knew quite a lot of the detail before I read the book, but I still think that there’s a lot here that is also very relatable in a wider sense.

This is no prurient true crime sensationalist book, but true to her character, it’s strong and elegant. It’s very measured and a real indictment of rape culture, but it’s also pulling you back to joy, back to life.