Our Stars Have Fled
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9782234065062
Description
When your personal world shatters, when events occur that are too terrible to think about and nearly impossible to describe, what do you do to keep yourself sane? Our Stars Have Fled is a collection of the letters Anne-Marie Révol wrote each day for a year to her deceased young daughters. She wrote the letters from pain and love, to pay tribute to them, to keep memories of them, and herself, alive.
Anne-Marie and her husband, Luc, took a romantic holiday in Greece while their children, Pénélope, a delightful two-year-old, and Paloma, a one-year-old who was just coming into her own, stayed with their grandparents in the south of France. When Anne-Marie and Luc returned to their apartment in Paris, they received a phone call from the hospital telling them that their daughters had died in a fire.
In her letters to her daughters, Révol describes what happened before and after learning of their deaths. She writes with sincerity and sensitivity of the time before the accident, of their later visit to the hospital—where they decide they are not capable of viewing the burned bodies—of the funeral. Day by day we follow the pathway through the stupor, amazement, pain, and absence that Anne-Marie and Luc both experience. But we hear, too, of the deep and abiding love between husband and wife, father and mother, and how this couple’s strength saves them both.
The letters relate with joy and simplicity their days as a family of four, and then with deep sorrow their days as a bereft and mourning couple. Révol writes of the impossibility of dismantling the girls’ bedroom, the need to talk about them often, to make them a continuing part of her life. Her love for them is unending, especially as she writes of the arrival of their newborn brother.
Our Stars Have Fled avoids pathos and self-indulgence, sometimes teetering between laughter and tears. It stands out, thanks to its unique, almost playful qualities, and its healthy edge of impropriety.
Author
Anne-Marie Revol : Anne-Marie Révol, born in 1973, is a journalist. She has worked as a freelancer for France Inter and France Info (1995–96), a reporter for Figaro (1996–2001), an editor-in-chief for the morning news on RMC (2001–03), and, since 2003, for French television.
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