Françoise Chandernagor: La Première épouse (1998)

Oddly, it's in a British book that I found a vital reference to Françoise Chandernagor's La Première épouse, which, like most of her novels, hasn't been translated into English. Brian Unwin, in With Respect, Minister: A View from Whitehall (2016) mentions that, as a civil servant, he knew both Philippe Jurgensen and his wife Françoise Chandernagor, who wrote La Première épouse, 'a somewhat bitter and thinly disguised novel' about the marriage breakup.

Yes, I thought this novel was from the heart, although I can't agree with the back cover, which claims she writes this with a lyrisme contenu ('contained lyricism') and a 'style sobre': far from it, as a wonderful, if really wild, rant from a dumped wife. So wild is it that it reminded me very much of Simone de Beauvoir's La Femme rompu, a book which the narrator of this novel mentions in passing.

Not only ranting, but also repetition are the order of the day here, although the writer can obviously be excused: she is merely echoing Catherine's thoughts as she can't help keeping them on permanent playback. A thirty-year-old relationship, twenty-five of them married, four children, only to be given the choice during – of all times – an anniversary meal in a restaurant: 'Divorce ou séparation ?' It's not as if they've not had a 'modern' marriage – from the husband Francis's point of view that is – one of her 'friends' tells her 'Ton mari, il baiserait une chèvre !' ('Your husband would fuck a goat!).

Laura Casale (of Italian origin, of course) is the 'lucky' woman who has partly been living with Francis for some time, although she doesn't of course know anything about his past, meaning all the years of marriage Catherine has known, all the little things that can't be forgotten, that have come back to haunt this broken woman, this woman in mourning as she calls herself. Time of course always heals, in spite of the unsightly scars. I loved the book, although at 255 pages it's a hell of a long rant.