Sauveur and Son
Marie-Aude Murail
(L’école des loisirs, 300 pages, 2016)
*** rights SOLD IN ITALIAN, HUNGARIAN, AND RUSSIAN ***
*** 120,000 copies sold ***
*** movie rights sold ***
*** elected ya novel of the year in the magazine
le monde des ados ***
*** FULL SYNOPSIS ***
Sauveur and Son centers around the life of widowed father and psychologist Sauveur Saint-Yves and his eight-year-old son, Lazare, in Orléans, France. The word “sauveur” in French translates to “savior,” and with a name like that, wouldn’t one feel predestined to save the whole world? Sauveur was born in Martinique and migrated to France after the death of his wife when Lazare was three years old. A deeply empathetic psychologist, he possesses boundless humor and generosity for his patients—even when encountering their resistance to therapy or blatant racism against him as a black man in France. Through his skill and kindness with his patients we learn the details of their ordeals, and eventually get to the heart of not only their experiences, but also the story of Sauveur himself.
Marie-Aude Murail breaks the novel into six consecutive weeks of Sauveur’s life. Each week recounts his schedule as he meets with his patients, whose surface problems are often a veil for something much deeper. His first patient is Margaux, a fourteen-year-old girl sent by the school nurse who had discovered that Margaux cuts herself. Self-harming serves as a physical manifestation of Margaux’s anxiety, stemming from her parents’ tumultuous divorce. Sauveur then meets Ella, a twelve-year-old girl with a phobia of school, the result of gender dysphoria and a burgeoning desire to transition into a boy. Then there’s Gabin, a sixteen-year-old boy addicted to video games whose mother struggles with psychosis. Gabin uses video games as an escape from the turbulence of his mother’s mental illness. Finally, Sauveur meets Cyrille, a nine-year-old boy who wets his bed. Cyrille’s bedwetting takes place only when he sleeps at home and never when he stays at his aunt’s place. This information helps Sauveur uncover the devastating reality that his bedwetting is a direct result of the sexual abuse Cyrille experiences at the hands of his mother’s new boyfriend.
Sauveur moves tirelessly between his personal and professional worlds, struggling to maintain a balance between them. The blur between the two deepens when Gabin comes to stay with them after his mother is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. New additions to his life don’t stop there; Sauveur adopts a hamster for Lazare, who, by a few strange twists of fate, kickstarts Sauveur’s romance with the mother of Lazare’s best friend.
In Sauveur and Son, Marie-Aude Murail broaches sensitive topics with an engaging confidence, humor, and depth. She demystifies and destigmatizes these topics, opening the floor to broader conversations about mental health, sexuality, and abuse. Murail lays bare human fallibility but also human strength, leaving her audience with a well-constructed narrative and lessons to carry through life. Sauveur and Son is a moving portrayal of family, pain, and community.
Marie-Aude Murail is one of the most famous French authors in children’s literature. Her books sell around 200,000 copies every year. She received the Legion of Honor, the highest French distinction, for her contribution to children’s literature and the common good. For Sauveur and Son, she received the Pépite France Télévisions 2016 (catégorie Grands) at the National Montreuil Fair and the Prix Ados de la ville de Rennes/Ille-et-Vilaine 2017.