Geneviève Delaisi de Parseval
The Novel of Isadora D.'s Family Publication date : October 1, 2002
All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion, wrote Tolstoi in the opening lines of Anna Karenin. It is a platitude that stories about families that live happily ever after are boring: only dramatic tales and serious pathologies fascinate readers and enlighten them about their own inner selves.
The life-story recounted here by Geneviève Delaisi de Parseval is free of incest, suicide, unavowed homosexuality, unknown fathers or any sort of unmentionable trauma. At first appearance, at least.
Instead, she describes the personal and intellectual development of a woman during the second half of the twentieth century. Is her story autobiographical? Is it fictionalised autobiography? Self-analysis? And who is this Isadora D., who explores secrets, tracks down family ghosts, and tries to question the past that has shaped her?
Psychiatrist De Parseval has artfully blended styles and genres in this daring story in which she tackles identity, memory and self-discourse.
Geneviève Delaisi de Parseval is a psychoanalyst specialising in issues concerning filiation and procreation. She is the author of LArt daccommoder les bébés and La Part de la mère.
The life-story recounted here by Geneviève Delaisi de Parseval is free of incest, suicide, unavowed homosexuality, unknown fathers or any sort of unmentionable trauma. At first appearance, at least.
Instead, she describes the personal and intellectual development of a woman during the second half of the twentieth century. Is her story autobiographical? Is it fictionalised autobiography? Self-analysis? And who is this Isadora D., who explores secrets, tracks down family ghosts, and tries to question the past that has shaped her?
Psychiatrist De Parseval has artfully blended styles and genres in this daring story in which she tackles identity, memory and self-discourse.
Geneviève Delaisi de Parseval is a psychoanalyst specialising in issues concerning filiation and procreation. She is the author of LArt daccommoder les bébés and La Part de la mère.