The book can be seen as a metaphor for how a feminist has to give up work to raise a child with special needs, clashing with her husband in a struggle to appreciate who her child is, and finally needing to set the child free into the life that suits her best. The mother is fiercely protective of her unusual child, and perceives others as trying to “fix” a child who is not broken. In the book, the narrator literally, or perhaps metaphorically, gives birth to an owl-baby. Suki Wessling speaks with local author Claire Oshetsky about her new book, Chouette. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Spotify To order Allegorizings or Chouettego to file | Play in new window | Duration: 53:52 | Recorded on January 23, 2022 Tantalising hints that Lefebvre might somehow be connected to Eyben help drive an engrossing narrative in which questions of ageing and memory are central.
The city of light is marvellously evoked, a metropolis dense with mystery and motif, teeming with ghosts from its often wilfully forgotten past. Her fate became an obsession, and three decades later he resumes his search. It centres on Jean Eyben, who in his 20s worked briefly as a private detective in Paris, tasked with finding a vanished woman named Noëlle Lefebvre. The French Nobelist mines familiar preoccupations to mesmerising effect in his latest novel. Yale University Press, £1 2.99, pp176 (paperback) Patrick Modiano (translated by Mark Polizzotti)
Dark wit, tenderness, music, enchantment – they’re all part of a story that remains oddly relatable despite its dazzling strangeness. Tiny, meanwhile, loves her as she is, becoming nocturnal and feeding her frozen mice so that she can be her authentic self. For the husband, Chouette is a project – something to fix, no matter how dangerous the cure. Sure enough, when the baby is born, she is winged and fierce, alarming doctors. Its heroine is Tiny, a cellist who is convinced that she’s become pregnant not by her handsome husband but by her owl lover. This wildly imagined debut presents a parable of maternal love unlike any other you’ll have encountered.
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