LE JARDIN DE MINUIT

LE JARDIN DE MINUIT
LE JARDIN DE MINUIT
Parution : 
09/01/2013
Collection : 
La Bleue
THE MIDNIGHT GARDEN

 

At the age of forty, when his wife leaves marking a turning point in his life, Joseph Eyscheil lets himself drift off into the past, particularly memories of his twin sister Élise in whose shadow he has always hovered. The strange and dazzling Élise became a writer but disappeared thirteen years ago in circumstances that have never been explained. She left behind three novels in which Joseph feels she recreated their childhood and all of which feature the same place: the house next door to their childhood home, surrounded by its garden. 
The descriptions of this garden gradually become a pivot for Joseph between the past and the present, reality and fiction, innocence and adulthood.
Where do things go when they’re gone, where do people go when they’re dead? What were the twins looking for the summer they were twelve and they used to slip under the gates into that garden at night?
By delving back into the memories of those trees and lawns, Joseph rediscovers a whole neighbourhood and a whole era: the street, the neighbours, their family home, their primary school and high school. A long lost childhood he can read about and dream about. Heat wave summers and the gradual disintegration of a life that looked perfect on the surface.
When he in turn begins to write, Joseph wants to explore his memories, especially of his sister who is very different to the attractive public persona she would one day become. Writing about the past usually amounts to reinventing it. Paradoxically, this may also be how the truth finally emerges.

 

Born in Toulouse in 1983, Émilie Desvaux wrote a first novel, À l’attention de la femme de ménage, published by Stock in 2011. It won the Femme magazine prize for a first novel.

« J’ai beaucoup repensé au jardin de la Maison Grise depuis qu’Élise a disparu. 
Son image se glisse en moi chaque fois que je passe trop de temps à ressasser l’enquête. Comme un flash ou un léger malaise. Comme la contraction involontaire d’un muscle. 
Lorsque, allongé sur le canapé, je me répète ce que je sais : Élise a quitté son appartement entre le 28 et le 30 novembre 1997, elle ne travaillait pas à un quatrième roman, la piste de ses amants n’a mené nulle part. Simplement, elle a disparu. 
Je suppose qu’elle a pu se lasser de son genre de vie, partir sur un coup de tête. Ou bien – et c’est une possibilité glaçante – avoir un accident brutal. Il est très difficile de ne pas imaginer (dis, tu veux voir un truc horrible ? ) qu’un des types avec qui elle sortait ait pu lui faire du mal. 
Pourtant, alors même que je me perds en hypothèses, ma pensée telle une eau souterraine filtre malgré moi vers le jardin de la Maison Grise. J’entends un oiseau crier, je me demande si ma jumelle ne me tend pas un piège ; c’est une idée stupide, j’ai cependant l’impression confuse qu’un événement se prépare. »
336 pages
Format :
138 x 215 mm
EAN : 
9782234074132
Prix : 
23.00 €

L'auteur

Emilie Desvaux

Desvaux
Née en 1983 à Toulouse, Émilie Desvaux est l’auteur d’un premier roman paru chez Stock en 2011, À l’attention de la femme de ménage....