Single thirty-year-old, tattooed and idealistic notary, Claire Castaigne, although explosive in the civilized school environment, is passionate about her profession and the immersion in the intimacy of the people that it allows, during weddings, inheritances or acquisitions. real estate.
But the mentalities as well as the habits and customs of his corporation weigh on him more and more.
The third part,
Les Vanités
, has just been published by JC Lattès editions, the first two are in the Pocket Book.
Interview with its author, Cécile Guidot, whose entry into the publishing industry began with Les Ateliers d'écriting du Figaro littéraire.
She explains her romantic work.
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LE FIGARO.- Les Vanités is the third volume in your literary series devoted to the world of notaries and that of their clients.
How does this last part differ from Acts and then from Wills?
Cécile GUIDOT.-
He is more introspective, we enter more into the intimacy of the characters.
Behind the masks of professional life, we discover their wounds, their weaknesses.
Everyone is led to reassess their destiny, to question their ambitions, their rivalries, their frustrations, their vanities.
The guiding thread of the saga is Claire Castaigne, a young notary who is iconoclastic in relation to her professional environment, what is her role?
Has it evolved over the course of the three books?
Claire is the one who comes from elsewhere and who will shake up the established order of the notarial office on rue de la Paix in Paris.
The Acts opens with her job interview, as if she were stepping into an arena.
After six months spent traveling, wondering about her future, she returned to the notarial profession, determined to give the best of herself to help her clients in the great moments of their lives.
But she also finds a coded, hierarchical world, a restrictive office life.
Over the course of the three books, she will endure, resist, rebel and decide to trace a freer trajectory, faithful to her wild and lonely heart.
Have you been a notary yourself, did the company you describe borrow from fiction or owe everything to reality?
I was a notary for ten years, I have lived remarkable experiences, it is a difficult profession where you have to manage both the legal and the human, the penalties, the anger, the conflicts, supervised by strong ethics, we are also the guardian of customers' money, the temptation is strong, it can result in excessive behavior.
I wanted to give an account of a lived or reported reality, but I was attached to the novel so that I could also borrow from my imagination, to have all my creative freedom.
What was your romantic work during these three volumes?
When I had the idea of writing about notaries, I immediately imagined a trilogy with several voices in order to have time to draw, through itineraries, stories of families, of singular couples, a kind of panorama of contemporary society. Notaries are at the heart of society. I wrote these three books in three years, like a long endurance race, to keep the same breath. I tried to ensure that the shape of each book corresponded to the evolving content. The first part, Les Actes describes the primacy of action, of conquest, it is dialogue, rhythmic. The Wills reveals the difficulties of the working world, the pressure, the logic of profit, the hierarchy. The questions emerge, the revolt is brewing. Acts are sometimes far removed from wills. The Vanities, by plunging into intimacies,describe how our vanities move us forward, delude us, blind us and sometimes cause us to fall. It's time for change.
And your next project, still in the notarial world?
I go to other subjects, other universes.
I am starting to write a much more intimate book on adolescence and its resonance in adulthood.