Novel
Thérèse Desqueyroux
François Mauriac · 1927
Synopsis
A woman leaves the courthouse: a decision to drop the case has just been handed down, her husband, Bernard, having testified in her favour to stifle the scandal. She takes the train back to the estate in the Landes where he is waiting for her, and on the journey she prepares the confession she wants to make to him: how she came to give him arsenic, by exceeding the doses of a remedy that had been prescribed for him. It remains to be seen what can be said, and to whom.
Context
The novel was published by Grasset in 1927. It is inspired by a real case: in 1906, in Bordeaux, a woman, Mme Canaby, was tried for attempting to poison her husband and convicted for forging prescriptions. The narrative takes place almost entirely during the heroine's journey home, as she relives her marriage and what led her to the crime. Georges Franju made a film of it in 1962, with Emmanuelle Riva, and Claude Miller another in 2012, with Audrey Tautou.
Who it is for
A short novel, told in retrospect. The setting matters as much as the plot: these marriages bring together pine forests, and a woman owns nothing in her own right.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's masterpiece, the novel was translated into English by Gerard Hopkins, then by Raymond N. MacKenzie under its original title.
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