Loyalties

Delphine de Vigan, translated by George Miller

Bloomsbury

Otago Daily Times, March 30th 2019

I first encountered French author Delphine de Vigan when I reviewed Based on a True Story, a claustrophobic psychological thriller a là Gillian Flynn in which the author/ narrator’s identity is usurped by another woman. Although the cast and plot of Loyalties are very different from its predecessor, the intense interiority of its characters and the steadily escalating tension of the narrative render it just as memorable and gripping a read.

At the heart of the story is twelve-year-old Théo, who, torn between his divorced parents and desperate to conceal his father’s paralysing depression, seeks oblivion at the bottom of a bottle. His best friend Mathis initially enjoys their illicit drinking sessions but is aware that all is not well in Theo’s life and soon realises that he is drinking ‘as if he wants to kill himself’. He knows he should say something, but because Théo has protected him since they first met, he chooses to keep his friend’s secrets rather than risk driving him away.

After finding the boys drunk together, Mathis’ mother, Cécile, insists they stop ‘keeping company’ and e-mails the school to voice her concerns but is too preoccupied with the discovery that her husband is an online Nazi troll to follow up. The only other person who suspects something is wrong is the boys’ teacher, Hélène. A history of abuse has left her hyper-vigilant, and she is quick to identify his distress, although mistaken about its cause. Haunted by unwelcome memories of her past, she tries unsuccessfully to convince her peers that Théo is in danger. When, in her determination to help him she oversteps the bounds of professional conduct, she is stood down – just before Cécile can contact her. And, as one opportunity after another is closed down, the tale’s tragic trajectory becomes ever more inexorable.

The plot’s urgency is perfectly matched by its form; short enough to be read in a single sitting and composed of short punctuated chapters that cycle between the protagonists; first person from Héléne and intimate third person for the other three.’ These accounts, each of which has its own distinctive voice, grow increasingly abbreviated as the tension builds only to halt at the moment of climax, leaving the reader in free fall. Heartbreakingly beautiful and, except for Cécile’s revelations, frighteningly plausible, Loyalties echoes loudly in the silence that follows its final page.