La femme qui ne vieillissait pas by Grégoire Delacourt (review)

Martine is just a normal little girl with a one-legged father and a beautiful mother. Her mother dies in an accident when she is thirteen and she confronts loss, but life goes on. She goes to school, then university. She falls in love and marries. At twenty-one she changes her name to Betty because she likes the way it sounds. She has a son. This novel is in the first person, and we get to know Martine/Betty as she sees herself. Her detailed observations and clever storytelling show a self-aware woman living the life she wanted: "[U]ne histoire simple, une de celles qui ne font pas les livres mais la vie" (57). The book's first section is entitled"Un à trente-cinq,"referring to Betty's years on this planet, and chapters are divided by chronology. One might imagine that this premise is too simple to be of interest, but then we recall the novel's title and notice the name of its second section: "Trente à trente." Here, Delacourt moves toward the experimental novel and turns Betty into a case study. The generous reader will see this experiment as a critique of the culturally produced desire to look forever young, whereas other readers might find the contrivance a bit facile. At age thirty, Betty agrees to participate in an art project where she will be photographed once a year. Five years later the photographer notices that Betty has not aged. At least not visibly. But Betty did not ask for this, and her life is no longer simple. What may be the dream of many is, for Betty, a poisoned gift:"À trente ans (quarante-deux), ce qui avait été ma chance allait faire mon malheur" (148). Her loving husband had imagined them growing old together, now an impossibility. And so, he leaves. Life for Betty goes on. However, in her mid-forties she looks thirty but needs reading glasses. Inside, she is aging. And life is complicated. At thirty/forty-eight one of her lovers leaves her when he sees her embracing her son, certain that she is unfaithful. As she is being fired, she cannot convince her employer that she is fifty and that it will be hard to start over. At her son's wedding she has to play the part of a cousin. And now Delacourt adds another dramatic twist. The last section of the novel bears the title "Soixante-trois," and the thirty-third photo in the art series shows a woman of that age with all the external signs of a life lived. The order of nature is restored. There are many ways of being"une femme qui ne vieillit pas." Martine's mother will be forever thirty-five, the age at the time of her passing. Photographs retain our youth throughout the years. And some of us fight growing old even as it transpires. We take anti-oxidants, buy face creams, pay for gym subscriptions. Dorian Gray sold his soul. Eternal youth sounds great. But be careful what you wish for.