Constance Debré

A provocative and fierce novel about motherhood, self-discovery and defiance

When Constance told her ex-husband that she was dating women, he made a string of unfounded accusations that separated her from her young son, Paul. Laurent trained Paul to say he no longer wants to see his mother, and the judge believed him.

She approaches this new life with passionate intensity and the desire for an unencumbered existence, certain that no love can last. Apart from cigarettes, two regular lovers and women she has brief affairs with, Constance's approach is monastic and military - she swims daily, reads, writes, and returns to small or borrowed rooms for the night.

A starkly beautiful account of impossible sacrifices asked from mothers, Love Me Tender is a bold novel of defiance, freedom and self-knowledge.

Love Me Tender

« Je ne vois pas pourquoi l’amour entre une mère et un fils ne serait pas exactement comme les autres amours. Pourquoi on ne pourrait pas cesser de s’aimer. Pourquoi on ne pourrait pas rompre. Je ne vois pas pourquoi on ne pourrait pas s’en foutre, une fois pour toutes, de l’amour. » Constance Debré poursuit sa quête entamée avec Play Boy, celle du sens, de la vie juste, de la vie bonne. Après la question de l’identité se pose la question de l’autre et de l’amour sous toutes ses formes, de l’amour maternel aux variations amoureuses. Faut-il, pour être libre, accueillir tout ce qui nous arrive ? Faut-il tout embrasser, jusqu’à nos propres défaites ? Peut-on renverser le chagrin ?

Love me tender

At the age of forty-three, the narrator abandons her marriage, her apartment and her successful legal career as a public defender to re-emerge as an out lesbian and a writer. In a series of short, sharp vignettes, the narrator describes her first female lovers - a married woman fifteen years older than her, a model ten years her junior - punctuated by encounters with her ex-husband, her father and her son. Looking at the world through fresh eyes, she questions everything that once lay beneath the surface of her well-managed life. Unburdened by marital and familial obligations, a new woman emerges, free to examine gender and marriage, selfishness and sacrifice, money and family, even the privilege inherent in her downward mobility. A compelling chronicle of transgression, Playboy is Constance Debré's unflinching account of new bachelorhood. Laconic, aggressive and radically truthful, she chronicles the process that made her one of the most important French writers today. Translated by Holly James

'An essential read' - Joelle Taylor, T.S. Eliot Prize-winning author of C+nto

Playboy

Play boy

Love me Tender

Love Me Tender (Semiotext

« Un meurtre c’est fait pour que quelque chose s’arrête. Est-ce que c’est possible que les choses s’arrêtent, que ce ne soit pas toujours le même aplat de tout, sur le même ton, à la même vitesse qui vous avale, irrespirable, le souffle court, ne plus avoir d’oxygène au cerveau à force, est-ce que c’est possible que tout le monde se taise, que le bébé se taise, que sa mère se taise, que le dealer se taise, que les flics se taisent, que les juges se taisent, que tous ils se taisent. Qu’ils fassent ce qu’ils veulent de lui, il leur donne son corps, mais qu’il puisse se taire, qu’ils le laissent ne plus répondre. »

Offenses

When Constance told her ex-husband that she was dating women, he made a string of unfounded accusations that separated her from her young son, Paul. Laurent trained Paul to say he no longer wants to see his mother, and the judge believed him. She approaches this new life with passionate intensity and the desire for an unencumbered existence, certain that no love can last. Apart from cigarettes, two regular lovers and women she has brief affairs with, Constance's approach is monastic and military - she swims daily, reads, writes, and returns to small or borrowed rooms for the night. A starkly beautiful account of impossible sacrifices asked from mothers, Love Me Tender is a bold novel of defiance, freedom and self-knowledge.

Constance Debré

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