Madame Figaro.- The title of your novel plays with a portmanteau expression, “living together”. Why that ?
My literary project was born the day after the attacks of 2015. We were constantly exposed to this neologism as if to encourage us to rebuild ourselves alongside each other, to rediscover common values that we would have lost.
My idea then was to show the resonance of this living together in the intimate space.
Because cohabitation is nothing but a sharing of territory...
Your main characters are a man and a woman who love each other and both already have children…
No one tells us that life together (and when everyone arrives with their own luggage and children) is a huge risk.
It is in our society like a story that we would not want to scratch.
However, when we live with the other, we marry everything about him: his belongings in the hall, his character, but also his brother who comes by for a drink, and a fortiori his child.
Still, for me, the house should be a refuge and not the place of effort.
But we realize that living together, with elements that we have not chosen, forces us to compose.
We compose outside, inside, suddenly there is no more space where we do not compose!
The most difficult thing about this idea of living together is that you have to “deal with it” everywhere.
I wanted to show that.
In video, the trailer of
Engagés
with Benjamin Lavernhe, by Emilie Frèche
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Does this mean that we must give it up?
In the society we live in, it would be a perfectly acceptable position to refuse anything that is going to be complicated.
However, it probably makes it better to have a thought for the other (including what he likes on a daily basis, what he misses in the fridge), to discover a different way of life and therefore an education or a culture daily different from ours.
Politically, it's the same thing, living together would mean agreeing not to be afraid of the other.
At home or outside, we realize that in the end, the other is a risk worth taking!
Editions Points, 288 pages, €7.70.
Points Editions
