196 Books: France

 The Confidant by Helene Gremillon 

I'm assuming most of you know where France is, but anyway:

I'm assuming you don't already know the summary:

Paris, 1975. While sifting through condolence letters after her mother's death, Camille finds a long, handwritten missive that she assumes came by mistake. But every Tuesday brings another installment from a stranger named Louis, a man separated from his first love, Annie, in the years before World War II. In his tale, Annie falls victim to the merciless plot of a wealthy, barren couple just as German troops arrive in Paris. But also awaiting Camille's discovery is the other side of the story - one that calls into question Annie's innocence and reveals the devastating consequences of revenge. As Camille reads on, she realizes that her own life may be the next chapter in this tragic story.

Here's your warning that this is going to be full of spoilers. 

I had a hard time putting this one down. It went back and forth between Camille's narration and the letters she receives, and the different sections had different font, so it was really easy to tell which was which. The backstory (if you want to call it that) is obviously super weird and basically everyone involved is very manipulative. 

This rich couple that Annie meets can't have children, which back in the 40s was a much bigger deal. So in one account the wife asks Annie to have the child for them, and in the other account Annie offers. But either way, the gist of it is Annie is going to have sex with the husband and hopefully get pregnant. I just...wtf. Look, I get it. Or maybe I don't; my desire to have children would never lead to me asking my husband to have sex with someone else. That's messed up. So in the initial encounter they go off into a room but he actually refuses to do it. But somewhere along there (it wasn't really explained how), they end up falling in love and keep having trysts. Not actually having sex though, so she won't get pregnant and they can keep meeting. Of course he gets drafted into the war and Annie does end up pregnant. Then Annie and the wife run off to Paris for the pregnancy, but they each become more suspicious and hateful of each other as time passes. Shortly after the baby is born, the wife kicks Annie out. She finds out later that Annie is always lurking around though, keeping her distance but watching the child. Eventually it seems like Annie commits suicide, but then at the end it kinda sounds like she didn't. Not really sure about that. 

So on the other end we have Camille. Shortly before her mother's death, Camille finds out she's pregnant and is trying to figure out what to do, as she doesn't think her boyfriend will be on board. She ultimately decides she's going to keep it because, "Abortion may claim to rescue women from the slavery of motherhood, but it imposes another form of slavery: guilt." Which, ugh, made me roll my eyes hard. It's one of the classic "pro-life" (more like pro-fetus) arguments: every single woman who has ever had an abortion regrets it and spends the rest of her life plagued with guilt. 

Anyway, Camille wrestles with her pregnancy and finding out that her mother wasn't really her mother. But it didn't ultimately say if she's going searching for her real mother (who, tbh, might be dead...still not sure). Also, the ending was super weird: Camille is out by this lake and a random plane lands and she takes a ride in it. And there's some light. It probably means something that I'm not deep enough to understand. 

Anyway, great book overall. It kept me on the edge of my seat!