Apr
21
In Memory, a confidante reveals to a young Philippe Grimbert secrets kept from him by his own family. Each short chapter brings both narrator and reader closer to mapping out the devastating past his parents were forced to endure. In his boyhood journals, Grimbert envisions how his father met and fell in love his mother, but is later forced to revise this narrative as the true one unravels before him. Uncovered information concerning his parents’ former lovers and changes in the spelling of his surname encourages Grimbert to finally confront his father, who had always held his anemic and bated son in contempt. Having two superior athletes as parents, Grimbert’s physical shortcomings haunt him into developing an obsession with the human form that rivals Kafka’s. Between the shared narratives of father and son, this historical family portrait discloses, through self-pity and regret, the significance of accepting, forgiving and, most importantly, not forgetting one’s past.I recommend this story to anyone who has ever fought invisible foes, has ever suspected their family of hiding something greater than a cookie recipe, or is interested in reading a beautiful and seductive study on the human body. Like most stories written on the aftermath of WWII, this is sure to break your heart and torture your soul.Memory is the second novel by Philippe Grimbert, who is also a published psychoanalyst. In 2007 Claude Miller adapted Un secret, as it is known in France, into a film starring Patrick Bruel and Cécile de France.
