There is an unusual form of French novel, of which this is a prime example, called the recit. It's a sort of self-aware narrative, in which the narrator knows that they're telling a story, with all the inherent discomfort of self-consciousness. This approach is what makes the tale told in Live Fast less autobiography than auto-fiction -- a distinction that may seem overly cute to readers in English but which acknowledges the fact that reality is what we make of it, and who truly knows what lies in the heart of others?

The story itself is based on the death of the author's husband Claude, killed too young in a motorcycle accident while heading home from work one day in 1999. Only 41 years-old, Claude loved music and motorcycles, and had borrowed a particularly powerful example of the latter on the day he died. The death was clearly accidental, but over two decades after the fact, the narrator still grieves and, understandably, finds herself looking for ways in which things could have turned out differently. Where she differs from the usual mourner is in how she delicately teases out the minute and myriad possibilities in which a single change in the tapestry of their lives could have kept him alive: things she could have done, things he could have done, things the entire universe could have made happen so that he would not have met his end so suddenly on that sunny afternoon.

As an obsessive thinker myself, I immediately identified with the thought processes that drove her to this. "What if I hadn't insisted on buying that house?" she asks herself. "What if Claude hadn't borrowed my brother's motorcycle? What if the weather had been rainy instead of fine?" The long list of If Onlys tortures her as she combs through their histories, musing on everything from her grandfather's suicide to global trade regulations to the seemingly inconsequential little choices that can change your life irrevocably. It is a crushing survey of guilt and responsibility and desire and, above all, futility in the face of death's finality.

For that reason alone, LF is a hard read for anyone who's ever known the grief of abruptly losing someone adored. You can't help but want to blame something, especially yourself, in order to reassert control over and make sense of the world. The fact that Brigitte Giraud's pain still persists over twenty years on calls to the most tender and still unhealed parts of any grieving reader's psyche. I wept several times reading this, both in recognition of and in solidarity with her lasting emotions.

Yet the writing is compelling and not without hope. While I thought the ending could have used a little more exploration, I did take comfort in the flipside that Ms Giraud found in her exacting scrutiny of her own tragedy. Fueled by the love of music she shared with Claude, she tells us:

<blockquote>You can make song lyrics say anything you want. Just like you can find meaning in any form of reality.</blockquote>

That, perhaps, is the main reason her story could only have been told as a recit, this acknowledgment that situations and details may differ but the underlying emotions will always reach out and resonate -- and, if we're lucky, provide comfort. Meaning can be found in so much and so little, and the truly important thing is to remember the love and the joy and to carry them forward with you throughout the rest of your life. To quote from another book that I recently read and enjoyed (<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9780385550468">Dead In The Frame</a> by Stephen Spotswood, that I'll be reviewing separately at <a href="https://www.criminalelement.com/author/dvaleris/">CriminalElement.com</a>):

<blockquote>What will be will be, and all we can do is learn from it. We must contend with the world that is, not the one that was, or the one that could have been.</blockquote>

I'm (obviously) going through a weird ass time, so it's been heartening to be reminded of all this, that love and joy are worthy in themselves and that while blame can be a temporary salve for pain, embracing the happiness of memory is better. Because life does go on for us survivors. We get to make our own choices going forward, and we get to decide how we process our pain. We don't need to forget or deny: we only have to learn and accept and remember that the existence of love has always been its own reward.

Live Fast by Brigitte Giraud was published February 11 2025 by Ecco and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9780063346727">Bookshop!</a>

The premise of this book intrigued me. A woman processes her grief over the loss of her boyfriend in a tragic motorcycle accident through a series of "What If" statements. The statements start as reasonable, like what if they hadn't closed on their new house early or what if her brother hadn't left his motorcycle at the new house to a little more wild, like what if the inventor of this motorcycle hadn't been born. The narrator works through the events of the day of his death, trying to understand what caused the accident. But, like most accidents, she is not able to come to an exact answer despite all of her searching.

This is an interesting piece of autofiction (Giraud's partner died in the same way) but it left me wanting. Perhaps I went into it with too high of expectations, since it had won the Prix Goncourt in 2022? I appreciated the way the narrator, and Giraud, used this format to explore grief but the concept has been done before (and honestly better). It got a little unhinged towards the end as well, which I guess is the nature of grief.

I appreciate what Giraud is doing in this book, but I think it was just not for me.

25 years ago Brigitte Giraud's husband died in a motorcycle accident, at a traffic light in central Lyon.

This short memoir is based on the idea of 'if only'. If only I had not insisted on moving houses, if only I had not been out of town that day, etc. etc.

More than anything it made me want to tell the author: IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT! Everything in life is the result of coincidences.

At the same time, the structure creates a clear picture of everything leading up to the Accident, the life Brigitte and Claude had, Claude's personality.

It makes for a good piece of French autofiction - a genre I crave at least a couple of times per year.

J’avoir le cafard (translation: I’m depressed or, more literally, “I have the cockroach”)

This short but sweet novel by Brigitte Giraud perfectly encapsulates the way your mind reels after the loss of a loved one. Across 23 chapters we see Brigitte parce through a series of events that may or may not have directly attributed to the untimely death of her husband, Claude. From actions as small as not making a phone call at 9:30 pm on a Monday night to the events of Saturday, June 19th, 1999- the day Stephen King was struck by a Minivan on his daily walk.

This one felt really hopeless in the way that only French literature can. The English translated edition comes out on Tuesday 2/11.

Thank you NetGalley, Brigitte Giraud, and Ecco publishing for the ARC.

Soulmates, they met young, married soon, had a son, seemingly the recipe for eternal happiness. Then he has an accident ending it all. Although this is over 20 years ago, his widow still muses on the vagaries of life that possibly could have avoided the outcome. In miniscule chapters preceded by "If only," she tells their history and even that of the motorcycle he was riding at the time. Not his. Not even available for sale in the country in which it was built (Japan). A couple well versed in the culture of the day, much reference is made particularly to music as his love for that medium was his source of joy as well as his employment at the Lyon library. Much wisdom between these pages, as well as regret, and one can only hope that by writing it down, she is able to help herself.