Constance Debré, born in 1972, is a French lawyer and novelist.
Constance Debré’s parents were journalist François Debré (1942–2020) and former model Maylis Ybarnégaray (1942–1988); the judge and politician Jean-Louis Debré is her uncle. Her grandparents included Michel Debré (1912–1996), former Prime Minister under General de Gaulle, and Jean Ybarnégaray (1883–1956), a minister of the Vichy regime and resistance fighter.
She was 16 when her mother died. She studied at Lycée Henri-IV, then law at Panthéon-Assas University. She is also a graduate of class 99 (E99) of the ESSEC Business School. She married in 1993 and had a son in 2008.
Working as a defence lawyer, she accompanied her father in 2011 when he was charged in an inquiry into fictitious jobs at the town hall of Paris. In 2013, she was elected second secretary of the Conference of Lawyers of the Paris Bar.
In 2015, she left her husband and her job to live with a woman and pursue a full-time career as a writer. In 2018, she won the Prix La Coupole for her autobiographical novel Play Boy, which describes the aftermath of this fateful decision: the custody battle over her son, and its associated pressures to conform to a “bourgeois” family model with a same-sex partner. It formed the first book in a trilogy.
(Wikipedia)
Debré on Minimalism and Excess
It approaches a zero degree of literature in its uncompromising directness (which dissolves the line between faithfulness and betrayal, constancy and distraction), but it is also the product of a compulsion to write, an excessive addiction to the written word.
I HOPE TO HAVE AT LEAST A ROUGH CUT OF THIS VIDEO BY THE WEEKEND. IN THE MEANTIME, YOU CAN VIEW THE TRANSCRIPT, BELOW.
- Debré, Constance. Love me Tender. Trans. Holly James. South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e), 2022.
Debré Videos
Two new & essential lesbian novels from France and Spain:
ArtCenter Graduate Seminar – Constance Debré in conversation with Chris kraus mp4 1080p:
The Cost of Freedom: Constance Debré and Eileen Myles:
Constance Debré on literary aesthetics | S.Fischer Gastprofessur:
Bibliotopia 2024 | Interview with Constance Debré:
One of the narrator’s friends (they’ve known each other “for twenty years” [141]) “serves [her] Pontet-Canet, which I drink in the corner by the fire” (142). This is a reminder of a former life: these days, with her new friends and lovers, she is more likely to be having wine “from the box” (41); by contrast, Pontet-Canet is one of the most distinguished and notable of French labels. It is one of just sixty or so wineries included in the Bourdeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855. And although it is ”only” cinquième cru or “fifth growth” (premier cru wines include labels such as Lafite Rothschild, Latour, and Margaux), it is still, for the ordinary consumer, far too expensive: here in Vancouver, a bottle goes for almost $300 CAD, which is an order of magnitude more than I, at least, am accustomed to spend on a wine. Yet wine writer Hugh Johnson is a little snooty about it: “1961 was the last great vintage Pontet-Canet has made” (Hugh Johnson’s Modern Encyclopedia of Wine 54). It is possible that Debré is making a small dig at faded glories, or at taste that is just a little bit off.
David Bowie....'Lady Grinning Soul':
Joan Armatrading - Me, Myself I (Video HQ):
Debré Questions
The following questions are taken from your blog posts…
On Motherhood:
Does having a child make you a mother, or is motherhood something else entirely?
Can motherhood and self-identity coexist in this novel?
Would you consider her a good mother? A good person? Can they be mutually exclusive?
On Freedom:
Can freedom ever exist without some kind of sacrifice? Do you think freedom is worth the sacrifices?
Do you think Constances pursuit of freedom is empowering, especially in relation to her role as a mother? can her rejection of social norms also be justified?
Do you think Constance is actually finding freedom in her choices, or is she just trying to cope with what she has lost?
If the narrator leaves her old life in search of freedom, why does she still keep people at an emotional distance in her new one? Is this freedom, or just another form of control?
Is the narrator actually becoming her true self, or is she just destroying her life and calling it freedom?
On the Title:
Considering the text was originally written in French, the fact that it started out with an English title felt odd. What was the purpose of that? Depending on the reasoning, should the English translation of the text have the title in a different langauge such as French?
Why do you think Debré gave this French novel an English title?
On Happiness:
Does this look like happiness to you?
Do you think that she’s happy with the decisions she’s made or even happy with her life in general?
Other
Why would the protagonist (or anyone) “prefer the truth of war over the hypocrisy of peace”? What do we gain from conflicts such as these?
Do you think that Constance could have loved her child as she focused on herself?
What do you think of her choices to disregard societal approval, granted she understood the risks associated with her decisions?
Is Constance avoidant by nature or did this whole situation (Laurent and Paul) make her this way? Does the book give you enough to decide?
Why was it not enough that she loved Paul? Why was it not enough that she tried over and over again to regain her son? Why was it so simple for him to villainize her?
What does the author mean by “a rich crime”? Is it the idea that only people who have it all consider partaking in this crime? Especially since they are the ones that have nothing to lose?
Is the problem really her behavior, or the fact that she refuses to follow the roles that society has already decided for her?
What did you find the most frustrating aspect of this book?
What did you think about the ending? Did it feel satisfying to you?
how we’re supposed to interpret her emotional state: is she numb, or is she deliberately refusing to perform emotion for the reader?
Maybe I felt uncomfortable because we usually expect a bit more of someone to be held back in public? It probably would have felt safer, but in the end I’m glad to have read so much of her. What do you think?
What did you feel like you learned from Love Me Tender?
Do you think the narrator is actually slowing down or speeding up after this pause?
What was your initial impression of the narrator? Did you think that Laurent’s accusations were baseless from the get-go, or did you have some suspicions?
