Délicieuse, the fifth novel by Marie Neuser, was released on August 23.
Published by Fleuve Éditions, the author offers us a long, dark, and complex monologue about a couple and a romantic breakup; a novel that gradually shifts towards a psychological thriller.
– After this sentence, the collapse of Martha’s world and everything that happens afterward will stem from this sentence, these few words.
Martha sat down to enjoy her meal and confide in the man she loves. But not just to him, actually, as Martha pours her heart out facing the camera on YouTube. Her confession thus penetrates into all consciences, into all homes. Her confession, her long journey after the announcement of Raph, her husband, the traitor, the one who cheats, the one who leaves.
Swept away by this news, Martha will sink, then transform and finally be reborn as she waits to take action.
Accustomed to writing powerful and original novels in both subject and treatment, Marie Neuser renews herself once again by offering with Délicieuse, a powerful monologue of a wounded woman. This first-person narrative is that of Martha. Martha who will tell us her story, go back over her journey after her husband’s announcement, after that seemingly innocuous yet so weighty phrase, Martha, we need to talk.
After this sentence, the collapse of Martha’s world and everything that happens afterward will stem from these few words.
Marie Neuser brings us directly into the heart of the matter with a first chapter of about fifty pages of absolute pain, written so accurately that it feels like it is us whom Raph has just left.
Quite dark, Délicieuse takes us into the throes of breakup, in complete immersion. All this would not be possible without Marie Neuser’s writing talent, her beautiful, poetic, painful, gothic pen will not fail to remind everyone of the dramas of romantic separation.
But Marie Neuser goes further and, despite the form of the narrative, does not fail to offer us a reflection on very current themes such as the couple, femininity, the double, the predominance of social networks, the way we stage ourselves on them, the mirror image they reflect of us and others.
Throughout her novel, Marie Neuser brings Martha to life with powerful and well-chosen words and leads us to a brutal ending – which we can foresee as the end approaches – and we can’t help but read in awe, powerless, like the thousands of internet users who would watch Martha’s video, stunned but fascinated.
Marion Boné
