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“The Hill”, by Mathilde Beaussault

Ed. du Seuil, 336 p.; €19.90.

After a first noted rural noir novel (The willows), the Breton writer navigates, for her second book, between the misery of the cities and the fields. Monroe is a young girl from a city of Rennes, pregnant, whom her mother passes like a parcel to her grandmother, Madeleine, a healer who lives alone in the hills.

Polyphonic, the book opens with a Rennes resident making a sordid discovery: a baby at the bottom of a garbage container. The police investigate, the doctors treat, the mother becomes agitated, the young woman and her grandmother become accustomed to each other… And the question is nagging: what happened for Monroe, so peaceful with Madeleine, to find herself bleeding in a room in town?

The novel is especially valuable for its carnal writing and the strong relationship between the granddaughter and the grandmother, the other voices being less convincing.

M.F.

Our opinion: PP