Facing the Night / Delphine de Vigan

Mother of two children, the partner of literary critic and host of the most successful literary television program in France – François Bonnell, the writer Delphine de Vigan was born in Boulogne-Billancourt (near Paris) in 1966. In 2001, she published her first novel, largely autobiographical, “Days Without Hunger,” which tells the story of a 19-year-old girl’s struggle with anorexia.

Since then, she has published six more books, mostly novels, all of which are bestsellers, and has also directed several films. Award-winning Delphine de Vigan is now one of the most successful authors in France. Her fourth novel, “Nou et Vani,” has been translated into twenty-five languages ​​and made into a film. This is her first book translated into Hebrew, and now her second book, “El mol el hilaal,” has been published in Hebrew. This is her seventh book, which was published in 2011 and was a huge success in France – over a million copies have been sold, half in regular format, half in paperback.

An autobiography, not a novel

The cover says “novel,” but from the very beginning it is clear that this is not a novel but an autobiographical story, as faithful as possible to reality, written in the first person by a narrator named Delphine de Vigan, who writes the events from her point of view. And not only that. The witness brings various official documents to support her claim, such as authentic police and medical reports, accurate information about television programs in which family members appeared, and more.

Why did the publisher and the author choose to adorn the cover with the title “Novel”? Isn’t that a lack of good faith? That cover shows a picture of a noble and beautiful woman, similar to Dominique Sandé, sitting at a table to which other people are gathered, holding a cigarette, her gaze directed towards a point on the horizon, with a smile that is not a mysterious smile. This is a photograph of Delphine’s mother, Lucille, a photograph described at the end of this documentary, which is entirely devoted to her life and death. A real photo of Lucille, we said.

The book begins with Lucille's suicide, two years before it was written, and ends with that dramatic moment when the daughter finds her mother, dead in her bed, while expanding and deepening it. Delphine de Vigan decided to investigate the mother's past and try to understand in detail what caused the suicide.

Many pages are devoted to the great mental effort that the project required of the researcher. A painful return to the past, fear of harming family members and relatives who were still alive. And also extensive physical efforts, meetings, recordings and conversations. Delphine met all of her mother's brothers and sisters and others involved in her life, heard recordings in which her mother's father, Georges, recounted his memories, watched a documentary that was shown as part of a 1969 television series (“Forum: Parental and Adolescent Relations”) about the large family in which friendship and understanding supposedly prevailed between the parents and children – Georges was a friendly and open father, rummaged through cardboard boxes that were brought up from basements, read texts, diary excerpts and letters from her mother Lucille, as well as several books that might shed light on her behavior.

The book follows Lucille's life in chronological order but occasionally makes forays into Delphine's present, who writes the book after hesitations and postponements and tells of her difficulties during the writing process and the way she carried out the task that she could no longer postpone. Delphine wants to get closer – for herself, for her children, on whom, against her will, the echo of fears rests – to the source of things. Delphine wants to know what she is passing on to them, to stop constantly fearing that something terrible and painful will happen to them, to her children, and to her, again. She cannot continue on her path as a writer without going through this arduous stage.

History of the mother's family

The beginning of the book describes in detail a bourgeois-bohemian family in which the brilliant and charismatic father, Georges, owner of an advertising agency, is married to Léon, a shapely blonde whose only desire is to have children. And indeed, eight are born, one after the other, blonde and beautiful like their mother, a devout Catholic, soft and loving, cheerful and optimistic, nothing breaks her spirit.

One of the children fell into a well as a child and was killed. This is the first drama in the book. 6-year-old Antonen played with his cousin on the rotten boards that covered a well, while on vacation at the house of the mother, Leanne's parents. The boards could not support the children's weight, the cousin managed to climb up, little Antonen drowned. Family life continues, more children are born.

One day, Georges brings home Jean-Marc, a black-haired boy who was abused by his mother. The scars on his legs are silent evidence that his mother forced him to kneel on the embers of the fireplace. Jean-Marc was brought in to take Antonin's place and he integrates into the family, not without difficulties, but he slowly finds his place in it and seems to have escaped the horror of his past.

At the age of 15, Leyen suddenly finds him in his bed, lifeless, with a plastic bag covering his face. It is not a suicide but a death caused by self-erotic asphyxiation. Delphine de Vigan does not dwell much on Jean-Marc's death, but it is possible that the adolescent's sexual tendencies, who used to abuse himself to achieve sexual gratification, were linked to the abuse he suffered at the hands of his biological mother.

The third death of one of the family's children, this time by suicide, will affect Milo, who at the age of 28 bought a gun, went to the woods and shot himself in the head. In the note he left, he wrote: "Forgive me, but I never wanted to live." The child, Tom, who has Down syndrome, was born after seven years in which Leanne was not pregnant and was already over 40, receives love and affection from all members of the family and serves as a unifying glue for her.

Delphine talks a lot about her mother Lucille's childhood among her brothers and sisters, and many pages are devoted to family life, meals, entertaining relatives and friends, children's games, and cheerful vacations in the country house that Delphine herself loved to spend time in as a child. Here and there, the author throws in hints at the ambivalence with which Father Georges treated his daughters, but only much later, in the middle of the book, does she reveal what precipitated the outbreak of Lucille's mental illness.

The beautiful girl modeled for children's clothing brands, married at a young age, gave birth to two daughters, divorced, lived a bohemian life, smoked cigarettes and drugs, and suffered from bipolar disorder. At the age of 32, exhausted and depressed, on the eve of the outbreak of her first attack of the disease - at the age of 33, Lucille sent each of her family members a text from her pen in which she declared that her father Georges raped her in her sleep when she was 16 after giving her a sleeping pill.

In light of the lack of response from the recipients of the letter, Lucille repeats in it and speaks only of attempts and not of the actual act. However, the author of the book brings the testimony of another sister, Justine, who, fortunately, managed to escape, who tells how Father Georges harassed her while she was staying at the family home in the village. The surprising testimony of Camille, Lucille's friend, leaves no room for doubt. Georges exerted indecent pressure on her (“I will tell your mother that you seduced me if you don't agree…”) and subjected her to his needs for several days during which they were both alone in the same house in the village.

According to Manon's testimony, the granddaughter, Delphine's sister, whose grandfather Georges tried to touch her as well (“If you're good, you'll get more gifts from me…”) completes the picture. The mother and grandmother, Lianne, tells her granddaughter Manon: “It's not nice to talk about Grandpa like that…”. Lianne, who had been cheerful all her life, who performed gymnastic tricks in a shiny leotard until the age of 75, turned a blind eye not only to her husband's numerous infidelities with young women in their 20s but also to the attempted rapes in his own home, some of which he managed to carry out.

Heart of loathing

In these pages, Delphine de Vigan touches the heart of disgust perfectly, with the right words, in a quiet tone, with an intelligent analysis. And returns again to Lucille's initial version of the sleeping pill. In a second version, Lucille tells of fainting from fear that allowed her father to carry out his plot in her. And her daughter Delphine offers a third version that explains the existence of the first two. Lucille probably did not swallow a pill or faint, but was the victim of an abuse of authority by her father.

A similar pattern of action to the one he used with Lucille's friend Cammy, except that Cammy found the courage to call things by their names. Later, in a different context, Delphine admits that at a certain time, she would be filled with hatred towards her family members and dream of punching them. Aren't they to blame for what Lucille has become, and they still laugh about it with their mouths full?

From now on, the book moves from one climax to another. Dangerous bouts of madness for Lucille herself and her daughters, hospitalizations, the suffering of the little girls, medications that turn Lucille into a robot, and surprisingly, a stable period of 15 years arrives when, at the age of 45, Lucille returned to school for 3 years, became a social worker and alleviated the suffering of others, including severe cases of AIDS patients, took good care of her grandchildren – the two children of Delphine and her first partner, the two children of Manon and her husband Antoine, went on impressive trips, and established social and romantic relationships.

After contracting lung cancer and being on the road to recovery, Lucille nevertheless decided to end it sooner rather than later, fearing that her body would no longer be able to withstand another ordeal, and at the age of 61, in 2008, she ended her life. The book's ending is extremely intense, returning to the beginning and unfolding it.

The book includes many passages about the family's history, which has already seen cases of child sexual abuse, child deaths, suicides, and mental illness in previous generations. Delphine de Vigan says she is not keen on psychogenealogy, but the facts are there, and the intergenerational transition cannot be denied.

The author also tells a lot about herself, about her childhood, about her relationship with her mother, about her love for her sister Menon, who is 4 years younger than her and who took great care of the artist, about her literary success (Lucille, on the other hand, sent poetic texts, some of which are quoted, to publishing houses that were all rejected), about her acceptance of the fact that she is a member of such a family and such a mother, about her desire and right to enjoy her life and make the most of it, in the company of her children and her partner – “the man I love.”

A welcome contribution to the treatment of mental illness

Delphine de Vigan wrote the autobiographical story, which, by the way, is not without humor here and there and even in some of the most dramatic situations, to take the heavy burden off her shoulders or at least reduce its weight. She was not sure that her private drama would interest the public, but she was wrong.

The therapy in her writing not only helped her but also many readers who experienced the same difficult experiences and felt relief and purification when they saw them clearly put on paper, described in detail in all their nuances and subtleties. Approximately twelve million people in France suffer from mental illness, of which approximately two million suffer from bipolar disorder (in Israel, approximately a quarter of a million people suffer from mental illness, of which approximately sixteen thousand suffer from bipolar disorder).

This is one of the reasons why the book resonated so strongly. People who came to meet the author burst into tears before her. These people, accustomed to the stigma that society places on them, suddenly saw themselves embodied in the heroine of a book, drawing encouragement and pride from it and strengthening their self-images. The book also has welcome practical results: Delphine de Vigan is currently active in a support organization for the mentally ill, which offers them a living space for the period after hospitalization, during which they learn to return to normal life.

A large part of the book is devoted to describing the manifestations of bipolar disorder, but the shorter section, documenting the sexual exploitation of adolescents, is no less important and proves again and again how necessary it is to break the law of silence. In everything that concerns sexual abuse, things must be said from the first signs, ears must hear, inside or outside the family - if it ignores, as is the case in most cases, and vigorous steps must be taken to stop the diabolical mechanism in time. And if the crime was not prevented in real time, it must be published afterwards to relieve the victims and prevent the curse from recurring in future generations. This document is an important link in the chain of documents that have already been published on the subject.

Looking into the light

Most readers respect the author's courage, but some voices condemn her for exposing her mother, "selling her for money." I, of course, do not join this voice. The story of Lucille's life and death, and the story of her daughter Delphine's childhood and adolescence, are written not only honestly but also with talent, by a gifted writer who is used to novels but here has embarked on a personal story, without any pretense, and I salute her.

The title of the book: “There is no face to the night,” and literally translated: “There is nothing that stands in the face of the night,” is taken from the famous song by the singer Alan Bashung, “Dare Josephine.” Bashung also suffered from lung cancer and died at the age of 61, like Lucille, after giving performances to his many fans until the last moments.

As the motto for Delphine de Vigan's autobiographical story, a quote from the painter is used again. Pierre Soulages, about the black color that invaded every corner of the canvas, but its various textures reflected a little weak light (the motto contradicts the title). It was not the darkness that Soulage wanted to paint, but the mysterious emergence of light from it. This is indeed the final feeling that remained in me after the shadows of the initial impressions had faded.