Vincent Almendros: Ma chère Lise (2011)

Ma chère Lise is Vincent Almendros’s first novel: he sent the typescript to Jean-Philippe Toussaint, who appreciated it and sent it on to Irène Lindon of Les Éditions de Minuit, and she subsequently made Almendros a member of this highly select publishing group.

The narrator of the novel is unnamed, but is twenty-four and private tutor to the immature and capricious Lise: for instance, she seems to have a habit of ordering coffee, taking a sip and proclaiming ‘beurk’ because she can’t stand coffee. Rather improbably he falls in love with her, and is obviously worried about the consequences of acting on his desires: although the age of consent in France is fifteen, there are ten years between them and he was born on the wrong side of the tracks.

The narrator comes from a working-class background, was raised in an HLM flat in the provinces, and has suddenly been temporarily hoisted into the life-style of the rich, joining Lise’s friendly parents Jean and Florence Delabaere at their weekend home in Le Loiret, etc.

And then Lise’s schoolfriend Camille appears, there’s a great deal of travel, a great deal of confusion (partly due to drink), it’s not clear what the relationship is between the narrator and Camille, and the love affair between Lise and the narrator is in a mess. Bizarrely, I note that some amateur reviews find this book straightforward: I don’t know what coffee they’ve been drinking.