Achieving revenge is not in everybody’s gift, thinks Juliette. It takes the intelligence of a scholar, the precision of an archer and the patience of a mole. Because, to have revenge, the offended has to put the offender in their place. That’s the sort of revenge Juliette wants on her former lover Samuel. She will use all her theoretical and practical knowledge on the subject of sex to ensure that Samuel, who abuses women, should be abused in the same way. This coldly calculating aim, this rational and analytically sound decision brings about the most horrible, disturbing and immoral of intrigues. And not simply because, in order to be faithful to her plan, Juliette flouts the most secure pillars of our sexual culture, but also and perhaps because this character, far from being mad or criminal, is a woman whose thought process, sensibilities and emotions and even experiences are strangely like our own.
Unlike other heretical narratives such as Sartre’s, this book will frighten, excite and create havoc because it tells a story that each of us might want to experience, not only in the role of Juliette but perhaps also in that of her unfortunate victim.
Marcela Iacub is a research director at the CNRS, a columnist for Libération and a prolific author whose books include Le crime était presque sexuel (2003), Confessions d’une mangeuse de viande (2011), Une société de violeurs ? (2012) and Belle et Bête (Stock, 2013).
L'auteur
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