November, 2022, our narrator — a woman — is told by a police officer over the phone that a cadaver has been found at the foot of a cliff, on the beach of Le Havre, a coastal town of Normandy where she grew up.

The investigation team needs her to come to the commissariat of Le Havre, the city where she grew up, the next day to answer a few questions. She is informed that a movie ticket has been found in the pants of the victim, with her phone number handwritten on it. Who is this man? And how was he connected to her? This brutal revelation prompts a profound and meandrous introspection in between various layers of the narrator’s and the city’s past.

Le Havre has been erased by bombings during WWII, its reconstruction dates back to the late 40s/early 50s, it is mostly built out of concrete, and encapsulates the memory of the demolished town.

Over the course of a day, our narrator walks around Le Havre, surrounded by phantoms of her past (a past lover who ghosted her) and of literature (Woolf’s To The Lighthouse). She observes the movement of the waves that mimic that of her memories and of her writing:

“sur la digue, l’aller enclencherait la décongestion de l’esprit — on brasse la question, on l’oxygène, on la déplie, à mesure que le phare s’élève dans la perspective, haut de 15m et couronné d’une lanterne rouge, de plus en plus tangible, de plus en plus détaillé aussi –, tandis que le retour, inversant le point de vue, prendrait la réalité à rebours, pour faire apparaitre sinon une réponse, du moins une autre formulation : l’art de revenir sur ses pas.”

[the outward path on the embankment would set your mind free – the question at hand is stirred, oxygenated, unfolded, as the lighthouse rises in perspective, 15m high and crowned with a red lantern, more and more tangible, more and more detailed too – while the way back, inverting your perspective, would take reality in reverse, to reveal if not an answer, at least another formulation: the art of retracing one’s steps.]

Maylis de Kerangal’s way with words, rhythms and sounds turns everything she writes into the most spellbinding and penetrating stories.

Jour de Ressac, Maylis de Kerangal, éditions Verticales
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Miriam Bridenne

After almost two decades of working in publishing, and a few round trips between Paris and New York, Miriam has decided to settle down at Albertine to do what she enjoys most: recommending books she loves. Somehow this also includes taking bizarre pictures for Albertine's social media outlets.

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