A family meeting in a pretty Bohemian house. It is the birthday of Théo, 20 years.
Around Moussia,
the mother hen who takes care of an indulgent eye on its
brooded, there is Estelle, the insane love of Théo, the buddies of
childhood: Marina, eternal skinned, Claude, flanked frimor of a snob
engaged , and Niels, the dominating brother... In top, Nina, the
grandmother lives her last
moments. Niels offers to Théo a supposed
parlour game to reveal the true thoughts of each one. Is not necessary
to be a large clerk to suspect that the party will turn to the play of
massacre.
The revelations (inceste, secrecies of family, lies and treasons) fall
as from Scuds in a war that nobody seems to have wanted (though).
Alice Ferney, as a virtuoso of the setting in scene, built her novel
on three glances, in parts entitled: "thought
things", "said things",
"brought back things".
With this erudite construction, which offers moments of pure
intelligence, one will reproach just a certain coldness. With peeling
too much, one loses the brittleness which underlies the relations of
this group as singular as attaching.
Family Saga "OTHERS", by Alice Ferney, 531 pages, ED Southern Acts