“My grandfather, my guardian angel”

You sign a comic on your father, go to live alone on a desert island when you had 8 years old. Put us mouth water …

The expression amuses me! The water on Eiao Island on which my father lived, in the Marquesas archipelago, was brackish. And the one around him was salted and infested with sharks. So, no, I won’t put them in your mouth!

What does this comic book reveal you?

The immense admiration that I nourished for my father – a free man -, and the lack that I experienced as a child, since he was often absent.

Your last cultural crush?

I just discovered Pierre Michon by reading his latest book, I write the iliad. I am under the spell!

The music that makes you happy in the morning?

There was a time when I listened to Led Zeppelin at the bed of bed … Today, I need more sweetness, so I prefer a JJ Cale blues.

The book you could reread a hundred times?

The master of Ballantrae, by Stevenson.

Your Madeleine de Proust?

Trouville (Calvados), where I spent all my summers between 3 and 17 years old. The light of the bay of Seine, its old houses, the sometimes ghostly atmosphere … I have the impression of being part of the landscape. A Proustian place if any since the young Marcel has often stayed at the Hôtel des Roches Noires.

A cute sin?

All sins are cute, right? Finally … except for a few.

A gene that you are happy to have inherited?

I do not know if it is a gene, but the sense of humor was well shared in my family.

You have three days, a backpack, and no car. Where are you going?

On the way of Stevenson – again him! – In the Cévennes, to walk with Jules, my 16 year old son.

Do you have a guardian angel on your shoulder?

Yes! When I was 8 years old, I dreamed a night of a man who stood next to me while I fell asleep. He said to me, “Don’t worry, I will always be there for you. The next morning, I spoke to my mother. I described this man to her and she replied: “He’s your grandfather!” »»

She showed me a photo of him – I had never seen it – and it was him. Since then, yes, he acts like a guardian angel. His presence reassures me.