Nicolas Couchepin

Les Mensch

«Maintenant je sais parce que maintenant je l'ai fait. Maintenant, je commence à mentir parce que toute ma vie sera mensonge. Maintenant, personne ne saura jamais combien cela m'a rendue différente.»

The Mensches are a completely ordinary family. They live in an ordinary part of town, worry about the usual things and hope for what everyone hopes for. Theo, the paterfamilias, is worried about growing old. Muriel, his wife, frets that she isn’t the perfect mother. Marie, their daughter, has discovered that she won’t live forever. And Simon, her younger brother, is mentally handicapped: he longs to be independent, which can’t happen.
As the Summer holidays approach, Theo sets about clearing out the basement of the house. His mother used to live there…now, the whole family want to use it. They all have their own reasons for shutting themselves up down there. And they all in their own way insist on why they should live down there. For Theo, it’s become clear that he would rather live a less ordinary life, and he records his feelings in a notebook. Muriel’s notes and lists, on the contrary, reveal her strong desire for normality. And in her ‘dear diary’, Marie records her first tremors of love. Lastly, Simon can only express his needs with the help of the others. And Lucie, their elderly neighbour, watches over all this.
The central characters in this story go on to create a new story, a drama that’s been covered up for many years. And to the family’s own perceptions of this story, there is added a new one: «The post-mortem of a drama…the remarkable story of the Mensch Family», which is the title of the book written by a certain Nicola Lievo, from which all this is quoted.
(Martin Zingg, translated by Max Easterman, Rosie Goldsmith)

Recommended for translation by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, www.12swissbooks.ch

Translation of title: The Mensch Family

Le Seuil, Paris 2013

ISBN: 978-2-02-106329-5