“Amours” by Leonor de Recondio is a novel set in 1908 within a bourgeois house with thick walls.
These walls protect all the buried secrets, the unconfessed desires. Victoire, 24 years old, is married to Anselme, an austere man completely devoted to his notary profession. They employ three domestic workers, including Celeste, a 17-year-old maid who regularly suffers Anselme’s abuses.
When Celeste becomes pregnant, the young wife makes the only decision possible in her eyes: to keep the child and pass it off as her own, thus gaining legitimacy in the eyes of the moralistic society. However, it turns out that Victoire lacks any maternal instinct, and the infant withers away in its crib due to a lack of attention.
You will follow these two female characters down unexpected paths as this subtly crafted novel serves a compelling story celebrating femininity.
“Amour” is a story of forgotten bodies rediscovering themselves. Celeste’s body is one that has been humiliated but is robust, unflawed, a body that endures in silence.
On the other hand, Victoire’s body is entirely disregarded because it is empty, a cold body devoid of any sense of pleasure, tightly confined within her corsets. “Amours” is a story of love in its plural form, beyond hypocrisy, the constraints of conventions, and morality. It is described as a self-evident truth.
There is no doubt that Celeste will linger in your mind—a luminous, strong woman who focuses on what is essential and acts according to what she believes to be right, even to the point of sacrifice.
Leonor de Recondio is also a baroque violinist; her words, her sentences flow smoothly and resonate like music.
by Nathalie Samrad-Shad
