Naya

Vous parler de mon fils by Philippe Besson
Rating : ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

“The absence of our son is inescapable, overwhelming, we feel it in every room of the apartment, in every place we frequent, his disappearance strikes us with every step we take, the lack of him is cruelly felt in every moment of our existence. The awareness that we will never again embrace him, breathe his scent, hear his voice or catch his smile is a constant torture. And nothing and no one can fill this void.”

It’s my first time reading a Philippe Besson book but definitely not my last, it’s short, simple but so beautifully haunting. This book is written from the dad’s perspective, where with the help of his memories and his present life, he’s telling the story of Hugo, his oldest son, that decided to end it all.

It’s a very silent book, there’s not a lot of dialogues between the family members because they can’t find the courage to speak with one another, so they grief in silence and that’s what makes this book so heavy and sad. What made me the most emotional is that you can see how grief implant itself into the daily life of Hugo’s family, how it’s in the little details that they’re missing him the most, it can be an empty chair at the family dinner table or the smell of his perfume that is haunting his room. This book should be obligatory to read at school to make kids and even adults understand how much bullying can destroy someone’s life. This book can be very triggering so be careful while reading it.

I never thought I could find and see myself in a character as much I saw myself in Hugo. Like Hugo I’ve suffered from bullying, nearly all my school life. For the bullies, this period of their life was just a chapter, a vague memory they probably don’t even remember anymore but for the people that were bullied, it isn’t just a chapter but a whole book, it’s years destroyed because of some stupid kids, the group effect and incompetent teachers/supervisors.

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