Anne Berest, GABRIËLE
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[0:45]And barrest is the author of Gabrielle.
[0:47]And first novel to appear in English, the postcard was a national bestseller, a library
[0:52]journal, NPR and Time Best Book of the Year, a vogue most anticipated book of the year,
[0:57]winner of the schwa-gone court prize and runner-up for the 2024 Dayton Literary Peace
[1:02]Prize.
[1:03]It was described as stunning by Leslie Camhy and the New Yorker as a powerful literary
[1:08]work by Julie Oringer in the New York Times Book Review and as intimate, profound, essential
[1:15]in the pages of Elle magazine.
[1:16]Her new novel Gabrielle is based on the life of Gabrielle Buffet, whose extraordinary impact
[1:21]on 20th century avant-garde art and whose remarkable life of largely been obscured.
[1:27]Welcome and thank you so much for coming on my podcast to discuss Gefle hit.
[1:34]How was that?
[1:35]Okay, it was perfect.
[1:38]So Ann and I are together here today in person, which is so wonderful.
[1:42]No, it's so great on their for me being here.
[1:45]Oh my gosh.
[1:46]Thank you.
[1:47]Oh, runner-up of Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
[1:50]Unbelievable.
[1:51]So exciting.
[1:53]Obviously, many people know you for the postcard and I cannot explain to how many people
[2:00]talk about the postcard all the time.
[2:02]Have you read, have you, have you, book clubs everywhere?
[2:05]It's amazing.
[2:06]You're amazing.
[2:07]Your story is amazing.
[2:08]Why don't we start with you explaining that book to people who don't know it and then
[2:13]we're going to talk about this book.
[2:15]Okay.
[2:16]That's okay.
[2:17]First of all, what I want to say is that can you imagine what does it mean for a French
[2:22]writer first to be translated in English and then to have all these readers here in America.
[2:32]You cannot imagine how it's so strong and emotional for me.
[2:39]It's like a dream.
[2:41]And so I really want to say thank you to all the book clubs, all the people here, the
[2:49]book sailors who supported my book.
[2:53]They say you're welcome.
[2:55]It is amazing.
[2:56]Did you ever expect when you wrote any of this?
[2:59]What did you hope for?
[3:00]I remember, I remember when I was in the plane from Paris to New York and I had this
[3:08]out.
[3:09]I thought someone bought a ticket for me to come and that's it's it's already huge.
[3:20]I already thanks for that.
[3:23]I already thank for that.
[3:25]I'm already grateful for that, but I couldn't expect what what will arrive and deliver.
[3:35]So tell your the short version of your family story and that and the past.
[3:42]So the postcard there's a story of this postcard, the true story of this postcard, my mother
[3:50]received in 2003, an anonymous postcard with only four first names written on it, nothing
[3:58]else.
[3:59]It's in nature, only four first names, her first names of her grandparents uncle and
[4:07]aunt who were killed during the Second World War because they were Jews.
[4:16]And so my book is my investigation to find who was this anonymous sender, the investigation
[4:26]to find who were these people of my family because I didn't know nothing about them.
[4:36]An investigation also and also a quiz like a quiz of identity to because I will agree
[4:43]up in a totally secular law family and a quiz for in for identity to discover what does
[4:51]it mean to be Jewish now today for me and what does it mean for you to be Jewish today?
[4:59]I wrote several pages in the book to explain exactly, but if I sum up, I will say that
[5:10]maybe for me being Jewish, it means maybe spending my whole life asking to myself what
[5:20]does that mean to be Jewish, yes, I understand it's a deep investigation, yes, and we are
[5:29]always tested exactly and always asking, yes, how can we do it better, better person, better
[5:38]Jewish person, how can we help, yes, give back, well you give back with your storytelling and
[5:45]with the postcard we learned all about one part of your family and now with Gefleen, we are learning
[5:53]about the other, another part of your family which I found really interesting when you
[5:59]write in the book that your mother did not necessarily want you to do this. No, tell me about
[6:04]this. She was furious. Yeah, she was not happy. I have to explain that. I wrote this book,
[6:10]first with my sister and it's very important for me to explain that she's a writer, a French
[6:17]writer, an amazing writer, and we write it together and I wrote it before the postcard. Oh,
[6:25]interesting. Yes, here in the USA, it comes out after but in France it was before it was the
[6:35]previous book and for me it was a little bit like the trigger to understand that I loved writing
[6:45]on my family and this book was like opening a door on my writer process and so the story of,
[6:58]yes, my mother, yes, she was furious because she didn't want us to to to write the book about
[7:08]her grandmother. And I'm not so sure how happy Gefleel would be either. That's a good
[7:16]reflection because you write about her relationship to her kids and her identity as a mother.
[7:24]And it's not like she was so into that to begin with, right? I mean, as you mentioned,
[7:30]the book, the kids are like ghosts. They're not in the story all that much. Yes.
[7:36]For her and for her husband, the interesting keys were the paintings. Yes.
[7:43]And this mad, obsessive, dysfunctional relationship that she found herself in at a young age and
[7:54]despite all the infidelity and the opium addiction and the madness and all of it that she could
[8:03]not extract herself from and didn't want to. No. Oh, sorry. I tweet. I tweet. Yeah. Yeah.
[8:11]I tweet in French. I tweet in French. And it's also said that you can't be a genius and a good
[8:23]parent. You can't be a genius and a good parent. Well, now a lot of parents are thinking, well,
[8:28]great. Now I'm not a genius. So they were genius and they had no time for kids.
[8:36]So it's a good news for art history. Yes. It was not a good news for my grandfather and my mother.
[8:45]No. And if you read the postcard, you know how my grandfather committed suicide.
[8:53]And usually that's young to age 27. Yes. Exactly. Usually that's parents who tells the story of
[9:06]the family to the children. But in our case with my sister, we wrote the story that her mother
[9:16]didn't know. And so when we finished the book, we said to her, no, that's the story of your grandmother.
[9:23]She knew nothing about her. And so it's like, come on. There's an inversion, an inversion about the
[9:32]way to how you tell the story in the family. Yes. Wow. And actually what you did in terms of the
[9:39]structure of the book was so interesting because you ended the birth of your grandfather. Yes.
[9:46]Before and you fast forward and tell us what happens later and go back and forth in time. But
[9:51]essentially it's all the back story. And then we stop there. And then you just have like a little bit
[9:57]about some of the other great stuff.
[10:00]crazy stuff in the family. But it's also about what does it mean to be the descendant of one person
[10:07]in the family line who was born with so much darkness and you have all these references to the light
[10:13]and the weight of the light versus the dark, which I found fascinating.
[10:18]You know, it makes me think that when I was 25, something like that,
[10:26]I was going through a depression and I went to meet a therapist and the therapist was an expert
[10:38]on family tree therapy. Hmm, family tree therapy. Interesting. And it really changed my life.
[10:47]And this person explained to me that if you cure your family tree for your dissidents' descendants,
[11:00]you also cure it for your ancestors. Love that. So that's why it's really important
[11:11]to try to understand what happened before you, because you move everything. And for example,
[11:22]this therapist, she explained to me all the repetition seekers and crazy things like, for example,
[11:33]my grandfather, who was born in the end of the book, he has the exact same birth date
[11:43]as me. And if you work on your family tree, you will find a lot, a lot of coincidences
[11:52]who are maybe not coincidences. But how, for example, how we are given the first names
[11:59]in your family, what does that mean? If you bear the first name of your grandmother,
[12:09]of your great grandfather, it means that you come on earth with something like a backpack.
[12:20]Yeah, baggage baggage. And it's really interesting to know that you have it,
[12:28]because you can feel something heavy on your shoulder and you don't know what is it. But if you
[12:35]work on your family tree, you can discover that, oh, maybe that's my grandfather, maybe that's my
[12:42]grand grand aunt. And in my books, Gabrielle, and also the postcard, that's this work I try to
[12:52]understand, not only for me, but for everybody, how you are influences influenced by things that
[13:04]up happen before you. And that even with the self memory, the memory you have in your self
[13:14]memory of emotions, of traumas, that's all that aquariums that I try to discover with these
[13:25]books. Yes, this notion of inherited trauma. Yes, which I'm so glad is rising to attention and
[13:31]getting validation because we know this, right? But now it's science, but now as it becomes more
[13:38]scientific and accepted, it's like, good. That's what we thought. It's hard to escape our past.
[13:45]Of course, there is a lot about the art world and all sorts of characters, how they intersect,
[13:52]Marcel Duchamp and Picasso, and like all these people throughout, which as someone who loves art
[14:00]was, it was very exciting to see. But despite all of that, I feel like the most interesting parts
[14:08]were, is the relationship between Gabrielle and her artist, what is his name again? Oh my god,
[14:14]your grandfather. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I only read it like a thousand times. Yes, the relationship
[14:20]between her and Picabia was so passionate, but without the physical passion. So intellectually
[14:28]charged this meeting of the minds. And you have a funny scene towards the beginning where they
[14:34]first physically get together. And they're both like really disappointed. Like that, which I'm like,
[14:40]how did she find that out? Like a diary or something? Like this is going deep here. And then,
[14:45]because of Picabia's dalliances and his affairs with other women throughout their relationship
[14:52]towards the end where he inscribes to my friend, to Mizemi. And it's she is just a friend.
[14:57]It shows like the trajectory of what happens when two people sort of link in life for better,
[15:03]for worse, for real. Tell me, like, what do you do with it with a relationship like that? And then,
[15:09]what does it do to like you and your relationships?
[15:22]He found letters in the archives at almost the end of his life. Yes, yes.
[15:26]We found the archives of the letters that he had sent to Picabia all through until the end of his life.
[15:33]So it's amazing. Wow. It divorced for years and years. And he is writing to her
[15:41]Picabia. What do you think of that? I need you help up that. And you know what? In these
[15:47]letters, the neighbor never speak about their children.
[15:53]Never. They would not make it today. No. I look up their parenting and nothing.
[16:00]They are only speaking about paintings that's fascinating. And sometimes he writes poems for
[16:09]other women. And he sent it to Gabrielle to know what she sings. They were, yes, Lincoln linked
[16:17]forever in something that is bigger than ego. And that's fascinating and also decorating courageous,
[16:29]no, digna. Decoraging. Discouraging. Yes. In Regal of your own life. And he said, okay.
[16:39]They found them each other. And Skeetat, so she's sick. What's interesting is that when
[16:48]she was young, as a young adult, she wanted to be a composer. A composer. Yes, she was clearly
[16:55]talented. She had all this early success. She was very good, very talented. But what's interesting
[17:02]is that she knew that she would be a good composer and well known. But when she met Picabia,
[17:11]she knew that together, it will be a revelation. So she accepted to quits our ego as a composer
[17:22]to become a crew, a couple, a partner, which will go through centuries. You have to be very smart
[17:32]to understand that. Being two is painters are being alone. Yeah, you mentioned that
[17:39]at first it seems sort of anti-feminist, right? That she gave everything up. Yes. But then you point
[17:44]out, no, no, no. This is her choice. She made this choice. Yes. And a lot of women at that time
[17:53]were under masculine poor. She's not represented at all of this period. Her freedom,
[18:03]the way she could travel, her relationship with her husband, the freedom they had,
[18:11]they had a love triangle with Marcel Duchamp. It's not representative. And maybe you can find that
[18:20]she, she could see the magic of the body. It could be a piece of responsibility.
[18:27]Me dosso can do. Dosso casi is social. It would have been that I was ashamed that she gave
[18:32]them everything. But in this case, as you were saying, it was her choice. It's a period in art history.
[18:40]And that's what fascinating as where artists were a crew. They wanted to live together
[18:49]to create together, to travel together. It's not like today or every artist is alone thinking
[18:58]of the art market. And no, no, no, it was not about money. It was a movement. It was about love
[19:05]and it was about feeling alive. And the other thing very important that she discovered
[19:12]that she had a skill. She was gifted of something that has no name, no word, to say that,
[19:26]is that she could see inside an artist how to help him to give the best part of himself.
[19:39]That's a skill. Yes. And all artists know that some people has this skill and that needs them.
[19:48]That's why all artists needed her.
[20:00]Varez, the night she spent with Varez helping him to compose his music.
[20:11]And what's interesting is that all the artists know that.
[20:18]That some people have that, inside them.
[20:21]And they were all very grateful to Gabrielle.
[20:26]When you read the letters, the books, they always say how important she is.
[20:36]But what's interesting is that when this story was written by art historians, they forget to write that.
[20:47]Right.
[20:48]Because she was a woman. And then because that kind of job of talent was like not interesting to the storytelling.
[21:02]And you have to imagine an artist like God alone, making masterpieces with nobody to help him.
[21:13]And that's the truth.
[21:15]Write us know that. Painters know that. Musicians know that.
[21:19]You need one, two persons around you.
[21:23]So tell me who you're, who do you surround yourself with when you make yours?
[21:28]A lot, a lot of, of, I need.
[21:31]I have around me some readers.
[21:38]I know that each book I had to ask them that will help me.
[21:44]Of course my editor, she has his skill, but I think that you can't create a one.
[21:52]You need the author. And that's beautiful to say that you need the others.
[21:57]And that's what you see in this book.
[22:02]They are always chatting together, always what do you see in what are you come with me.
[22:10]We can exchange our paintings. You, you will paint on my, on my painter and I will paint on yours.
[22:18]And I, I think that's maybe the good moment now to remember that.
[22:24]These guys, these women that revolution and art, they did it as a crew, as a generation.
[22:33]Yes. It's amazing.
[22:36]So how did learning all of this about both sides of your family and all of this background and the family tree therapy and all of it?
[22:45]How do you live your life differently if you do?
[22:49]Or like, how has it impacted your relationships? Like, what do you do with all this?
[22:55]Me, I am kind of your original person.
[23:00]So I really think that they are on my shoulders.
[23:05]They are really, I really think that they are talking to me.
[23:09]And for, I will give you an example.
[23:12]In the book, Frosties and Gabrielle, they went to New York.
[23:17]I know. For the memorial.
[23:20]And what happened that Gabrielle, she was the only one to speak in English.
[23:26]They were the only French to come.
[23:28]And because she was the only one to speak in English, she could say whatever she wanted.
[23:36]And she said, the most important painter in France is Marcel Duchamp.
[23:44]It was totally false, totally.
[23:49]Marcel Duchamp, he was little brother of two brothers.
[23:56]The two brothers were the known guys, the stores in Paris, but not Marcel Atoll.
[24:06]But because she was the only to be able to speak, she could explain that she was the store.
[24:17]And people starting here in the USA to have interest on Marcel.
[24:23]And of course, because he was a very smart guy and a great artist,
[24:29]he became so well known in the USA, but that's funny to know how does it, did it start?
[24:37]And because of that, when I knew that my book will be translated in the USA in English for the postcard,
[24:50]I had in my head like a voice who tell me, now you have to learn how to speak English.
[24:58]Because you go to the USA and so my great-granddaughter, like your grandmother will give you advice.
[25:10]I heard her telling me, now you work and you learn how to speak English.
[25:18]Now, every day you learn.
[25:20]You just learned how to speak English?
[25:22]But because I knew that for them it was something so important.
[25:30]Wow. That's very impressive.
[25:34]But I have this voice inside me.
[25:36]No, I understand. It's still just like, that's awesome.
[25:41]That's really great.
[25:43]I feel like I can't learn too many new things at my age anyway.
[25:47]I can learn everything about books and history, but I don't know languages.
[25:51]I don't know. So hard.
[25:53]So hard.
[25:54]Oh my gosh.
[25:55]My big problem with English is the pronunciation, but it sounds so good when you speak English.
[26:01]It's so...
[26:02]It's a pronunciation.
[26:03]No, it's amazing.
[26:04]It's so difficult.
[26:06]It sounds great. You're doing great.
[26:08]No, it's...
[26:09]You make it sound so much prettier than it is.
[26:13]So...
[26:14]Thank you, because me, I feel as if I wear a 10-year-old sign.
[26:20]No, no, no. This is so impressive.
[26:22]And also, you know, we know how you write.
[26:25]Like, you and your sister were in this amazing masterpiece of so much information
[26:31]that you turn into this beautiful story.
[26:34]I mean, the amount of trips these people took.
[26:37]Like, and now they're in Switzerland, and now they've gone to Buenos Aires,
[26:40]and now you're going to New York, and now they do.
[26:42]I'm like, what are these...
[26:43]They'd never said still.
[26:45]Sounds crazy.
[26:46]Right?
[26:47]I feel like as fast as the ideas were flying, they were moving.
[26:50]And I felt like, at that time, there wasn't quite as much non-stop moving the way we do.
[26:54]But these...
[26:55]Like, everybody was all over the place.
[26:57]I was also fascinating by that.
[27:00]How often they move.
[27:03]But two...
[27:05]We made three years of research.
[27:08]Because we knew nothing.
[27:10]Mm-hmm.
[27:11]We are not art historians.
[27:14]So, we had everything to discover.
[27:18]And after three years of researching.
[27:21]Like, as if we were writing, I don't know.
[27:24]Like, a essay or...
[27:28]We started to write.
[27:31]And we are not historians.
[27:33]We have novelists.
[27:35]We have writers.
[27:36]So we wanted to write it as an extraordinary novel.
[27:42]But everything is true.
[27:45]And in the French version,
[27:48]you have all the nuts in the...
[27:52]Food nuts.
[27:53]Food nuts.
[27:55]Because we wanted to show to people that it's true.
[28:00]It's true.
[28:02]And after.
[28:04]So, we started to write.
[28:06]And because my sister is also a writer,
[28:09]she's very famous in France as a writer.
[28:13]We started to write a chapter.
[28:16]I wrote a chapter.
[28:17]She wrote a chapter.
[28:19]And then we exchange.
[28:22]Mm-hmm.
[28:23]And I wrote what she had written.
[28:26]And she wrote what I had written.
[28:32]And so it was amazing to see how the other cat changed the world.
[28:41]It was a unique experience.
[28:45]And do you feel like it brought you closer together?
[28:49]We were very close.
[28:52]And we had also a lot of arguing.
[28:57]It was so funny.
[28:59]But it was like the same experience,
[29:04]the same thing as playing together when we were child.
[29:09]Mm-hmm.
[29:11]Writing together and playing together was the same thing.
[29:16]And it was so emotional to be found.
[29:21]This feeling you had when you are playing as a child with your sister.
[29:26]Mm-hmm.
[29:28]Yes.
[29:29]And now we want to do it again.
[29:31]Oh, good.
[29:32]Yes.
[29:33]What are you going to write about next?
[29:34]And we want to write about, if you don't know if you remember,
[29:39]in the postcard, Gabrielle.
[29:42]Because that's the young Gabrielle.
[29:44]Yes.
[29:45]Gabrielle.
[29:46]But in the postcard, she's old.
[29:48]And with her daughter, they are in this resistance network.
[29:54]Yes.
[29:55]In the postcard, this resistance network.
[30:00]takes three chapters, but we discover that we can write a novel just about the network.
[30:08]So we want to do that only on this period of the war.
[30:14]I can't wait to read that. That will be wonderful. So after all of this,
[30:20]do you have advice for people taking on big historical deep dive family projects?
[30:27]Okay. First advice, if you search, you will find because what is amazing is that
[30:39]all people or they give them shakanas the trust. Everybody leaves the trust.
[30:48]Even even you think it's impossible. I will find nothing. No, no, no, no.
[30:55]Because it can be irrational too, but I'm sure that when you start to work on your ancestors,
[31:07]they are so happy that they start to give you signs. They start to move. And if you really are
[31:19]concentrate. And if you follow your instinct, you don't know why you feel that you have to read
[31:25]this book. You don't know why something through you on to see a museum on a subject.
[31:38]You don't know why, but that's the science of your ancestors really. And it can take 10 years,
[31:48]15 years. It's a long travel, but I don't know one person would talk to me. I don't have
[31:58]found something. No, no, because the dead people, they are so grateful to you that they help you
[32:09]really. Well, now I feel bad. I haven't been helping my ancestors enough. I have to get to work,
[32:16]make them happy. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Who knows what we'll find? You will find.
[32:25]And you have now is intended, for example, for the Jews you have in Yad Vashem,
[32:34]Jerusalem, you have all the fights to find the names. You have now is intended.
[32:43]It's easier to find the clues and yes, the traces. Amazing. Well, congratulations. This was
[32:53]amazing. Your story is amazing. Both sides. I learned so much. I feel like I had this whole
[33:02]education, particularly in this time of intense creativity, that I didn't feel like I knew
[33:09]enough about that now I was just like living with all these important people. I was so happy
[33:13]to say this. So thank you. It was really, really amazing. And of course, the postcard, oh my gosh,
[33:18]so congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi,
[33:26]formerly mom's don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend,
[33:30]leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much.
[33:37]Oh, and bye the books.