Catherine Texier

So raw that it was almost embarrassing to share with strangers. Not much seemed positive about the now broken marriage other than powerful sexual attraction ("his cum stick", ewwwwwwwwwwww) and the enjoyment of cooking together. I guess I can admire her bravery but it's still kind of whiny and purposeless.

I had this sat on my shelf so long before getting round to reading, and I think it came from a remainder bookshop back in the 90s. So I was a bit surprised to see some of the authors in it are actually much more well known now than they would have been back then - so you get David Foster Wallace with an author bio saying he's 'working on something long' (gotta be Infinite Jest right?), and A M Homes before she's published May We be Forgiven etc.

I really dislike the cover, and so was a bit show more sorry to see it was by Art Spiegelman.

Anyway its a collection of quirky and disturbing short stories, all vaguely about love, romance and sex. Some are better than others, and I'm finding it hard to remember them all in detail now, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. Its odd to read something that was probably edgy and modern at time of publishing but now seems a little dated. show less

Was sie getan hatte, darüber sprach man nicht … Catherine Texiers Urgroßmutter lebte in einem kleinen Dorf in der Vendée, war verheiratet und hatte drei Kinder. Kurz vor Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts verschwand sie für eineinhalb Jahre. Was ist in dieser Zeit geschehen? Ist sie wirklich mit ihrer Jugendliebe durchgebrannt und nach Saigon gefahren? Inspiriert von dem gut gehüteten Familiengeheimnis, hat Catherine Texier einen hinreißenden Roman über eine selbstbewusste, show more unberechenbare Frau geschrieben. show less

My rating is an average. I would give the first 9/10 of the book 4 stars and the last 1/10 zero stars.

Victorine, married with two children, leaves an unhappy marriage and escapes to Indochina with her childhood sweetheart. They build a life there in the hot, humid weather, exotic flowers and swirls of opium smoke. Then, after 10 years, she goes back to France, back to her husband. She starts out planning to finally end things with him - ask for a divorce, explain things to her children - but show more she stays, has another child, lives out her life. The frustrating thing about the book is that 95% of the story deals with her decision to leave and her life in Indochina; only a small fraction at the very end deals with her return. There is no mention of how she was received by her old friends and neighbors, how she explained her absence, how she made peace - if she made peace - with her children. She and her husband had another child, but they also separated: there is virtually no explanation for that and there are no details, no explanations. She continued to see her childhood sweetheart after her marriage broke up - only a few brief paragraphs explain all of this. Although she saw him every summer from the time she and her husband separated until he died at age 62 (only 3 years before the story takes place), there is no explanation of how this started, why it continued, why they never married. If you like a story with closure and all the loose ends wrapped up, avoid this book. show less