No escaping mother: Lili is Crying, bv Hélène Bessette, reviewed

Spectator

a day ago

'Everyone has a mother, but we don't all smash up our lives for her sake,' we hear in the first few pages of Lili is Crying. It's a sensible message, but one which seems suited to an entirely different book. Hélène Bessette's 1953 debut novel – translated into English for the first time – is a tale of bust-ups, mistakes and life-ruining decisions in a fiery, fickle relationship between a mother and daughter.
Charlotte and her daughter Lili live in Provence, and the novel jumps between the 1930s and 1940s, from Lili's 'ribbons and Sunday dresses' to her first freighted dalliances with boys. Charlotte runs a boarding house from which Lili longs to escape – and nearly manages to, with the same young man who tries to convince her not to destroy her life for her mother. His honesty is his mistake, and Lili fails to leave for him – eventually 'going off' not with 'the man I do love' but instead 'with the man I don't'. Her flight ends in failure – there are disappointments and a backstreet abortion – and it isn't long before she is back with Charlotte. The two stay together while Lili's husband, a Slav, is interned in Dachau for the duration of the war.
Bessette's prose is prickly and snappy, with short lines and speech introduced by dashes. On the page it looks more like verse than prose, an effect which matches Bessette's take on the 'poetic novel'. Yet the style is even less defined than this suggests. The action is narrated by everyone and no one. Even the house in Provence has a voice, resentful, complaining: 'Naturally, they slam my doors. What do they care if my doors are damaged?' There is also a mysterious, ever-present shepherd. The effect is one of a verse drama, with a mocking chorus in the wings. People's ages change and remain the same, defying chronology. This is a novel with no regard for anything as stuffy as the traditional passing of time.
In 1953, Bessette – a 35-year-old divorcée and teacher at an école maternelle – was hailed as someone radical. Gallimard signed her up for a ten-book deal; Marguerite Duras called her the very definition of 'living literature'. Yet the early acclaim failed to sustain her career. When she died in 2000, all 13 of her novels were out of print. Perhaps Lili is Crying – a story of unachieved dreams and the pain of continuing to hope – will be the one to revive her reputation.