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In a slightly mawkish parallel to real life, earlier this year Darrieussecq was criticised for the bobo (bourgeois-bohème) quarantine diaries where she detailed her own retreat from Paris to her large family home in the Basque country. Rose’s maternal instinct ‘to take charge of his [Younès’s] life, fill out his application for asylum, write his story’ is misguided too, and on some level she knows this. But the act of witnessing his story is important nonetheless, and in the course of the novel, Younès becomes a witness to Rose’s. Their relationship is mysterious, charged and inevitably shadowy, since it is told from Rose’s perspective.
Perhaps it is not so much that Rose is a heroine, then, though she does tap into some kooky holistic powers, transmitting waves and vibrations that guide Younès towards his destiny. Rather, it seems for Darrieussecq to devote attention to the question of migration, exile and the figure of the refugee is significant in unlocking more questions for the reader.
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