“There is beauty in what is broken”

In September, you received the 2025 American Novel prize at the Deauville American Film Festival for your new novel, Where does the light enter?. How did you experience it?

It was fantastic! The festival organizers rolled out the red carpet for me and I was welcomed like a star. I am 70 years old, I have been writing for fifty years, and some readers have read almost all of my books: this has touched me deeply.

I am published in the United States, of course, but nowhere other than in France have I encountered such enthusiasm from the public and critics. Interesting and impressive detail: here, my novels are also read by men, who ask for personal dedications. I don’t want to “romanticize” the French man, but as my novels address women’s journeys, love, family, I am more used to meeting women.

You speak French, and you go on long book signing tours. When did this love affair with the French public begin?

I was published in French for the first time with baby lovein 1983, at the age of 29. I came on tour – with my second son, pregnant with my third child! – and I met a few dozen readers. Success came later, at age 57, when Philippe Rey became my editor, upon the release of Long weekendwhich was adapted for the cinema (under the title Last Days of Summereditor’s note) .

At this time in my life, I was suffering the opprobrium of the literary public in the United States because, a few years earlier, I had dared to tell about my toxic relationship with the famous writer JD Salinger, when I was 18 and he was 53. On the other hand, in Paris, and in all the French cities I went to, the public reception was warm, touching.

I had just met Jim, 59 years old, the man who would become my husband. So I started two love stories: one with Jim, the other with the French public! I learned your language to be able to communicate with my readers and happily returned to France after the release of each of my books.

Where does the light enter? is the continuation ofWhere happy people livedwhich chronicled Eleanor’s family life on her New Hampshire farm from the 1970s to the 2010s. What inspired you to write this sequel*?

I loved writing Eleanor’s story. I wrote the book I would have liked to read. That of a woman who wants to offer the best to her husband and children but comes up against reality. She dreams of an ideal family, of birthday parties, of laughter and Christmas logs; she falls in love, gets married, buys a farm in the countryside, raises her three children with love. But nothing goes as planned: there is a very serious accident involving a child, the separation from her husband, a teenager who rejects her. She has to deal with it. For me, the story was over.

However, the readers troubled me. They liked this novel, but criticized me for the sacrificial character of Eleanor, who takes care of the needs of her children and her husband without ever leaving room for her own. It was harsh but true. It concerns my heroine, but it concerned me too. So I had to write new chapters of his life. For the first time without a husband and children at home, what could Eleanor do for herself?

Your heroine nevertheless returns to the family farm to take care of her ex-husband, Cam, suffering from cancer, and to accompany her son Toby, who has a disability. It’s more of a return to square one…

No ! She comes back but different. If she accompanies Cam in his last days, it is because they form a family after all, they have three children. At 57, she knows the difference between what matters and what doesn’t. She no longer dwells on old grievances, she forgives and enjoys happy moments. Her family will continue to play a big role, but will not be everything to her.

She understood that she cannot give everything. That she doesn’t have to give everything away. Toby has become an independent adult. Her youngest daughter has cut off all relations with her mother. Eleanor resigned herself, despite the pain and sadness, to waiting for her to come back to her one day, leaving the door open for her. It’s very hard for a mother to see the suffering of her children and not be able to help them.

But Eleanor has matured, understood that everyone must make their own way, and so does she. She also has another love, without this love being everything to her. She restarts her professional life, writes and draws children’s books…

Where does the light enter? is a very poetic title. Where does it come from? And where exactly does the light enter?

My title comes from a lyric in the song Anthem, by Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s’ how the lights get in (There is a crack in everything / This is how light enters).” This reflects the central idea of ​​my novel: perfection, the perfect mother, the perfect child, the perfect family… All of that doesn’t exist. Everyone has flaws, fault lines. Now, there is beauty in what is broken, and all we have to do is recognize that beauty. This is the gift of sorrow.

I understood this with the death of my second husband, Jim, whom I accompanied through his illness, pancreatic cancer – moments that I relate in One day you will tell this story . It was brutal, violent, I searched for how to survive. By keeping his memory, of course, but also, from that, by building something. Jim existed, and that’s a gift.

My heroine realizes that we must cherish what is and what has been. (Joyce Maynard opens her novel and reads one of the final pages.) “If the sun shone continuously and it never rained, if there were only springs and no winter, always music and never silence, love without solitude, where would the beauty, the astonishment come from? If no one died, how would we measure the value of each day of life?

Is that also why you made his son Toby, who lost his cognitive faculties following an accident in his childhood, the central and luminous character of this novel?

Exactly. Eleanor has focused on what her boy could have become – graduating from a great university, holding an important job… She mourns what is lost, instead of seeing what remains and what is there because that is precisely how things happened. Then she finally understands that Toby has something more than the others: he is intrinsically good, incapable of doing the slightest harm; he pays particular attention to different people. He lives a simple life, raising goats which he pampers, and making cheese; he bonds with the son of a neighbor in precarious circumstances and provides him with valuable support. He loves June, a young disabled woman too.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.»: your approach is very Christ-like!

Who can fail to embrace the words of Christ? I am Jewish through my mother, who also passed on to me a taste for poetry and literature. My father was the son of a Christian missionary in India who had only one book, the Bible. So I have this double heritage. Unfortunately in my country, the message of the Gospel is completely misused by the political elites who claim to be its bearers. The words of Christ touch my heart.

Eleanor’s eldest, Alison, who now calls herself Al, passed from girl to boy. What made you want to talk about a transgender child? The spirit of the times?

No. Anything can happen… Anything happens! If our children are not what we imagine, what do we do? Are we rejecting them? This situation is very hard for Eleanor, who knows that it is difficult for Al, who is in continuous discomfort. She discovers that it is always better to support her child than to cut off the relationship. I’m talking about today’s society, the family, with everything that’s happening around me, my children – I have three, and four grandchildren. I also draw inspiration from the women I worked with in my writing and memory workshops, in my home in Guatemala (read his universe, opposite).

What do you want to convey in your novels, especially this one?

I want to tell beautiful stories, make people laugh and cry; I want tension, surprise, psychological realism, and that we turn the pages non-stop all night long! But I choose endearing characters, courageous, strong women, who convey my philosophy: the importance of resilience. This is the great talent of my life. I did not avoid tragedy, loss. When I was young, I wanted a perfect family, and I got divorced at 35. I had failed, it was very painful. Jim’s cancer was a tough ordeal. But I got through it all. The pain remains, but it creates empathy. We don’t always get what we want, but gifts always arrive that we don’t expect.

* The book can be read independently of the first volume, thanks to meticulous construction work.