- June 17, 2022
Avec toutes mes sympathies - Essay - Olivia de Lamberterie - Livre de poche, 2019
Literary critic Olivia de Lamberterie takes up her pen to tell the story of her brother's life and death by suicide. It's also the story of the author's mourning, her grief, her anger, but also her determination to anchor herself in life. "I wanted neither to mourn nor to give in to desolation," she writes. "I wanted to invent a joyful way of being sad. A memoir in the Anglo-Saxon sense, this tale of mourning, written after the suicide of her beloved brother, is above all about brotherly, familial, conjugal and friendly love. It's also about the love of life, because Alex, the author's brother, described as sunny and gifted with fantasy, did his best to live life to the fullest, despite the despair. Poignant, the book reminds us that sometimes, in the face of mental illness, love, no matter how great, does not give us the strength to live. The author speaks frankly and lucidly about suicide, which she defines as "the double pain, the violence of the disappearance generating an embarrassed silence that takes up all the space, preventing even the memory of happy days". So the author recounts those happy days, and her brother's courage as he fights against the melancholy that will eventually have the last word. Olivia de Lamberterie's deeply moving and fair account offers a flash of light and gentleness to those bereaved by suicide, but also to the loved ones of people with fragile mental health. A book not to be forgotten.
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