Le chapeau de Mitterrand by Antoine Laurain (review)

given the chance to reflect on her life and personality by writing her thoughts down in various notebooks and on loose paper. She is 23 years old and has received a prison term of 25 years—longer than her entire life at the time of the trial. Infanticide as the subject of a work of literature is, of course, nothing new— neither in France nor in other countries. The subject caught the author’s attention when it came up as a news item on television. However, what Lajoux did with the material is all her own. As in her two previous novels from the same publisher— Puisque c’est ça la vie and Le guetteur du Midi (FR 85.4)—the heroine has had a difficult childhood. Cendrine, who chooses to connect the etymology of her first name with the negative concept of ashes, grew up as a neglected child that from the age of nine years was sexually abused by an adult friend of the family. Although she is not unintelligent, her academic performance at school is anything but spectacular. She discontinues a training course in accounting and winds up working as a waitress. She becomes pregnant by some guy she does not care about, and while reading deeper into her confessions and self-observations, one has to wonder if she is a victim of social circumstances or of her own negligence. Lajoux presents the story of the child murderer as a case study, as the phenomenology of a childhood gone wrong. The artistic approach and final achievement of the author consists in creating the convincing illusion that the inmate speaks for herself. The unfortunate convict becomes aware of herself in the process of writing: self-realization through language, a theme reminiscent of the famous case of Kaspar Hauser. When Cendrine says about her writing system that “L’écriture a libéré les mots. Ma main raconte ce que ma gorge m’avait toujours ordonné de taire” (30), one may also be reminded of the écriture automatique proposed by the Surrealists. One may even feel compelled to think of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous autobiography Les mots (1964). Cendrine’s self-analysis eventually comes to the conclusion: “Je suis une meurtrière. Je sais pourquoi. À present, j’ai recouvré la raison. Je suis délivrée” (144). It is the word that sets her free—the word that appears at the end of a long and painful, almost classical catharsis. Cendrine overcomes the negative connotation of her name (derived from “cendres ”) and can rise like a Phoenix from the ashes. The author, a former history professor, has understood how to clear a news item from its sensationalist wrapping and to offer a new, yet realistic reading of a difficult case: a thoughtful and commendable literary achievement. Ocean County College (NJ), emeritus Gert Niers LAURAIN, ANTOINE. Le chapeau de Mitterrand. Paris: Flammarion, 2012. ISBN 978-20812 -7412-9. Pp. 212. 18 a. This novel is a charming combination of fantasy, psychological analysis, and social commentary. The story is set during the years 1986–88, from the beginning of President Mitterrand’s first cohabitation (with Jacques Chirac) until his re-election two years later. As the title indicates, the central feature is François Mitterrand’s fedora hat, which he leaves behind one evening in a Paris restaurant and which changes ownership between four individuals—three men and a woman—who become the protagonists of the novel. The possession and wearing of the president ’s hat changes the lives of these four people for the better. They are, each in Reviews 793 their own way, liberated from the morass of self-doubt, conformism, and low self-esteem that have held them back until they put on Mitterrand’s seemingly magical hat. Daniel Mercier, who finds the hat in the brasserie after sitting at the table next to that of the presidential party, overcomes his timidity at work, becomes more outspoken at meetings of his company, and soon gets a major promotion . He is also the first of the hat’s beneficiaries to lose it when he no longer really needs it, but he spends the rest of the novel tracking it...