A forgotten mid-century genius, recently rediscovered in France and never before translated into English, Hélène Bessette is a treasure and a bracing force to reckon with.
Lili Is Crying, Hélène Bessette’s debut novel, explores the fraughtness and depth of the troubling relationship between Lili and her mother Charlotte. With a near-mythic quality, Bessette’s stripped-back prose evokes at once the pain of thwarted love—of desire run cold—and the promise of renewal. Lauded by critics on its initial publication in 1953 for its boundary-pushing style, Lili Is Crying transformed Bessette into a cult author in France. Moving and maddening in turns, the characters are so trapped in their own cruelty and sorrows, but in its spareness it feels “Show me a woman who has actually chosen something.” Championed by Raymond Queneau, then an editor at Gallimard, Bessette’s novels were hailed for their experimentation, unusual economy of expression, rarity, strange humor, and their sheer vivacity.