Bøger af Constance Debré

Alt i Constance Debrés liv ser strålende ud: Hun er succesfuld forsvarsadvokat og kommer fra et af de mest magtfulde familiedynastier i Frankrig. Indtil hun en dag vågner op, forlader sit topjob, sin store lejlighed midt i Paris og sin mand gennem tyve år. Da hun senere fortæller ham, at hun er begyndt at se kvinder, kastes hun ud i en absurd strid om forældremyndigheden og får ikke engang lov til at se sin 8-årige søn. For eksmanden mener ikke, at hendes nye liv som lesbisk, radikal forfatter er kompatibelt med rollen som mor. Men hvem dikterer vilkårene for kærlighed, i forelskelser og i moderkærlighed? Findes der virkelig noget rigtigt og forkert, når det kommer til at elske nogen? Og hvad vil det sige at leve sandt og frit? Love Me Tender er en kompromisløs autofiktiv roman om frihed, seksualitet og moderskab fra en af Frankrigs mest interessante nye litterære stemmer. »En af de mest fascinerende stemmer i flere år … « The Guardian »Et knytnæveslag lige i hjertet!« L Obs »Lige dele hjerteskærende og rebelsk.« The Spectator

Constance seemingly had it all: born into a wealthy and influential family; a career as a successful lawyer, love from her husband and son. But behind this veneer was the stifling pressure to conform to the boundaries of French society within which she could not be herself and survive.Playboy traces one woman's transition from straight lawyer, mother and wife to the buzz-cut and tattooed lesbian taking the Parisian literary scene by storm. Constance is a detached narrator as she takes us through the quiet boredom of her life with her husband Laurent, the betrayal of his affair, the arrival of her son, and the influence of drugs and alcohol on her relationship with her family. Unburdened by marital and familial obligations, a new Constance emerges, free to explore the complexities of her love for women and herself. An affecting and compelling chronicle of transgression and the balance of power, Playboy is an unflinching account of Constance Debré's discovery of bachelorhood. Translated by Holly James

A novel of lesbian identity and motherhood, and the societal pressures that place them in opposition.The daughter of an illustrious French family whose members include a former Prime Minister, a model, and a journalist, Constance Debré abandoned her marriage and legal career in 2015 to write full-time and begin a relationship with a woman. Her transformation from affluent career woman to broke single lesbian was chronicled in her 2018 novel Play boy, praised by Virginie Despentes for its writing that is at once “flippant and consumed by anxiety.”In Love Me Tender, Debré goes on to further describe the consequences of that life-changing decision. Her husband, Laurent, seeks to permanently separate her from their eight-year old child. Vilified in divorce court by her ex, she loses custody of her son and is allowed to see him only once every two weeks for a supervised hour. Deprived of her child, Debré gives up her two-bedroom apartment and bounces between borrowed apartments, hotel rooms, and a studio the size of a cell. She involves herself in brief affairs with numerous women who vary in age, body type, language, and lifestyle. But the closer she gets to them, the more distant she feels. Apart from cigarettes and sex, her life is completely ascetic: a regime of intense reading and writing, interrupted only by sleep and athletic swimming. She shuns any place where she might observe children, avoiding playgrounds and parks “as if they were cluster bombs ready to explode, riddling her body with pieces of shrapnel.”  Writing graphically about sex, rupture, longing, and despair in the first person, Debré’s work is often compared with the punk-era writings of Guillaume Dustan and Herve Guibert, whose work she has championed. As she says of Guibert: “I love him because he says I and he’s a pornographer. That seems to be essential when you write. Otherwise you don’t say anything.” But in Love Me Tender, Debré speaks courageously of love in its many forms, reframing what it means to be a mother beyond conventional expectations.