Nothing Stands in the Way of the Night - Delphine de Vigan - book

Elle Roman Readers' Prize 2012 - FNAC Novel Prize 2011 - France Télévisions Roman Prize 2011 - Renaudot High School Students' Prize 2011

"The pain of Lucile, my mother, was part of our childhood and later of our adult life, Lucile's pain undoubtedly constitutes us, my sister and me, but any attempt at explanation is doomed to failure. Writing can do nothing about it, at most it allows me to ask questions and to question memory.
Lucile's family, ours therefore, has given rise to many hypotheses and commentaries throughout its history. The people I met during my research speak of fascination; I often heard it said in my childhood. My family embodies the noisiest, most spectacular aspects of joy, the tireless echo of the dead, and the reverberation of disaster. Today I also know that it illustrates, like so many other families, the destructive power of the Word, and that of silence.
The book, perhaps, would be nothing other than that, the story of this quest, would contain within itself its own genesis, its narrative wanderings, its unfinished attempts. But it would be this impulse, from me towards her, hesitant and unfinished.

In this dazzling investigation into the heart of family memory, where the most luminous memories rub shoulders with the most buried secrets, it is all our lives, our flaws and our own wounds that Delphine de Vigan powerfully unravels.