Marie Demers is returning to autofiction these days. Not half, but completely with both legs. In a novel without filters, certainly immodest, she promises to write what she least wants to say. She spares no one and harms many people in the process, starting with… herself.
Updated at 7:00 a.m.
“Is it true that I would have preferred to do the interview with Dominic Tardif? » We’re not yet sitting down to talk about her Détournements, published this week by Hurtubise – a “first person” story in which she tackles all of her small, large and medium-sized “traumas” head-on in over 300 pages Life. Life – let Marie Demers ask the question. It gives you an idea of the character, a spontaneity that is clumsy to say the least. We can’t blame the author of Les Désordres amores and In Between for her lack of authenticity, shall we say.
It must be said that she lives from this search for the truth, which is the origin of her autofiction, the fictional part of which we search in vain because she reveals so many details about known facts (here her mother, an interview in Los Angeles). Click there, she even returns to an episode of the #AgressionNonDdonné movement in which her name was spread. We’ll come back to that.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
With Détournements, Marie Demers pushes the boundaries of autofiction.
I wanted to write the truth about myself, about the ugly, the beautiful, the complex, the strange, to create a portrait of a human being, this being who is also a symptom of the world.
Marie Demers, author
So autofiction or autobiography? Once our slight unease has passed, the author generously answers our questions: “The autobiographical pact implies a search for the truth that I consider impossible,” she says, “but that we can get closer to.” »
Hence his suggestion, which is both bold and kamikaze and pushes the boundaries of autofiction quite far, thank you very much, especially with this decision not to use a fictional name. You read that right. And it’s intentional: “I’m putting myself in danger. Why should I protect people who, in my opinion, have not protected me? ” she said with another confusing statement.
Lying naked
When we read his adventures, be it in his childhood chalet or on a surfing trip in the south, through several short and tortuous love affairs, we end up wondering if that’s not the point of an anime: to put yourself in danger . “Yes,” she admits, “at the same time, when I was writing, I had the impression that there was something there that saved me.” »
My tragedy was that I didn’t feel seen by my mother. […] But if you want to be seen, you really have to be seen.
Marie Demers
For this reason, as we understand, she reveals herself in this endearing and confusing story, which begins with her “flaws” (that’s what the chapter is called), her “idealized” relationship with her father and is quite conflictual with her mother, the author Dominique Demers (whom she never mentions by name, but quotes in detail). “In a novel that’s about yourself, something is lost if you don’t talk about your childhood,” she says, knowing that her mother (her father died when she was 21) is in danger of being “hurt.” to become. “I also have a lot of empathy,” she adds, “I feel caring, but I also can’t deny our relationship!” »
Narcissistic, a little, as an exercise, dare we? “If this were a narcissistic exercise, I would present an ideal vision of myself. However, I didn’t get away unscathed! “, she answers skillfully.
It is impossible here to ignore his chapter on this toxic professional relationship, for which he was publicly criticized a few years ago in the wake of the #NonDenouncedAggression movement in the literary world. “It’s sad that it seems like a reckoning,” she said, “but there’s no choice but to seem that way.” […] I still managed to be wrong…” Note that she also asks thorny questions about the boundaries between wrongdoing and dissent, public interest and defamation, a new topic on which Marie Demers suspects she risks resentment to excite, that’s clear. Still, “I wouldn’t have found the same truth if I had changed the names,” she emphasizes.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
“Why should I protect people who I don’t think have protected me? » asks Marie Demers.
By putting the names […]I have a responsibility to portray this as honestly as possible.
Marie Demers, author
She couldn’t help but talk about it, especially because this recent affair plunged her into the deepest depths, including dark thoughts. “Literature has always saved me. […] It’s the only place I thought I belonged. And then I didn’t have it anymore. » Now, by confronting her past head-on and telling her version of the facts as “honestly” as possible, as she says, “I’m taking my seat back.” Otherwise it would be a distraction. But this book is a hunt for distraction! »
Here we are. However, while we believed that she had experienced enough of abandonment, aggression and crises of all kinds, the author concludes her book with one last twisted episode, and not the least. We won’t tell you everything, but since nothing is simple and the truth can only be complex, Marie Demers adds a layer: “I couldn’t have done it without my psychologist.” [à écrire ce livre]. […] I’m fine there […], but I’m sure I’m afraid this novel will ruin my life. To find that balance, I had to write it at the same time. It’s a paradox: what saves me is what kills me…”
The distractions
Hurtubise
342 pages