Laurent Mauvignier, winner for “The Empty House”

A black grand piano, the complete Rougon-Macquart works by Zola, a chest of drawers with a marble table, drawers filled with papers and photos. The opulent family home that Laurent Mauvignier inherited from his father contains some furniture, books and objects, and above all an immense void of unsaid things, a hollow mountain of murmurs, of rumors that the author aims to bring to light. What shadow did the history of his ancestors cast on his own, him whose father committed suicide when he was 16?

Why was Marguerite, her paternal grandmother, crossed out or erased from all the photos? Imagining his family of 20th century landowners, the novelist thus brings to life Marie-Ernestine, his great-grandmother, who had an immense talent for the piano, but was the victim of an arranged marriage which put an end to her desires as a pianist and for emancipation. Tourangeau Laurent Mauvignier also gives life to Firmin, Jeanne-Marie, Jules, Monsieur and Madame Claude, and young Paulette, during the Second World War.

He thus creates an immense, intense fresco, with long and winding sentences, which recounts the ravages of patriarchy, wars and shame. A time not so long ago, the echo of which we can still hear. His broad novel, in the style of a 19th century novel, also tells the universal story of an unloved little girl. “Among my distant family, some have been delusional,” said the author on France Inter in “la 20e Heure”, September 29, who admits not having recovered from this painful past. “Writing allows you to transform all this, like an alchemist,” he says. I wanted to turn lead into gold. Successful alchemy!

Our opinion: PPP