Over The Rainbow

« J'écris pour ne pas tourner la page. J'écris pour inverser le cours du temps. J'écris pour ne pas te perdre pour toujours. J'écris pour rester ton enfant. » 

This story, we feel that the author has been transporting it for a long time, that it matured before being presented to us : a cry of love to a father who died too soon and who says nothing but the joy of being oneself.

Through fifty-seven very short chapters (between two to four pages), Constance Joly has woven her text like a film in Super 8, sepia color, edited from images and memories left by her father. 

Sometimes, there are only small pieces that it would be inconceivable to lose even if we don't know how to put them together with the rest. Chapter 33 "All that I don't know how to say", carefully collects these paternal traces : "the smell of your sweaters, between saltpeter, cut hay and wet earth", "the materiality of your body, its warmth, something special when it comes to your ribs, this place is reassuring. That's where I hug you", "your strokes of blood against the pillows, only the bolsters are worth", "your hand, exhausted, on a white sheet. »

Constance Joly's father was homosexual. And he died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of fifty-three. She recounts in a modest, fine, and delicate voice, her father, his journey from resignation to being the good son and married father of a family to the acceptance of being carried by the wind of freedom post 68 in France. She finds the right distance with the narrative voice of the "you" which is addressed to the father, a "you" which immediately inhabits the story. With her graceful pen, she tears the veil of silence and shame that has surrounded (and still surrounds today) seropositivity and AIDS.

The text overflows with love without ever dripping with a sentimentality that would place the reader in a voyeuristic position. On the contrary, from a very singular subject (having been one of the first children raised by a gay couple, and by a father among the first victims of AIDS), Constance Joly manages to touch everyone.

Over the rainbow, there is the enchanted land of childhood, the promise of happiness, the Rainbow flag, the nostalgia for an era that left a strong imprint on human beings and their sensations. There is the courage not to shrink from what calls us.

On this national AIDS day (here in France), I figured it was the best time to write about that novel.