Dad, mom and me, and me, and me. The family novel is a great classic in literature. And we know some masterpieces. However, this literary school year is at this point under the sign of the parentage that is wondered if the publishing houses and the writer now have as inspiration for the only family book.
Obviously, this is not new. From Romain Gary to Marcel Pagnol, via Marcel Proust or Colette, French literature is full of tributes to dad and mom. But what is a good pretext for talking about oneself requires talent, a lot. Opening a family photo album does not guarantee inspiration.
Their mother’s books
Because, at the end of summer 2025, the abundance of books evoking family memories (and in particular maternal) raises questions. Here, Vanessa Schneider evokes her enarque as a father (Hard skin). There, Emmanuel Carrère (Kolkhoze) Puts on the life of her maternal academician, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse (spoiler: she is not nice). Elsewhere, Paul Gasnier talks about his mother’s accident (The collision).
While Amélie Nothomb, in her traditional, fall delivery, takes care of hers (So much the better succeeding First bloodreleased in 2021, in which she spoke of dad). Also, Justine Lévy evokes her mother’s cancer (A funny pain). In JackyAnthony Passeon plays video games with dad and, in FinistèreAnne Berest evokes her father’s illness.
There are others. Jakuta Alikavazovic (To the big ones) Also attaches to his mother. Just like Régis Jauffret (Momat least the title is clear), Raphaël Enthoven (Albatross) or Catherine Millet (Simone Emonet). While Laurent Mauvignier (The empty house) Reconstructs its family history … This literary school year is therefore a cemetery. For the most part, these books evoke the death of a mother. Obviously, mourning work is less painful if it is shared with its readership.
If these books were still taking the guts, shaken, turned upside down … But no. They are like what has become of a good part of the French edition.
There are still others and it is not delightful. In the spring, we even had Marc Lavoine (When the horses arrive) paying tribute to his mother. A condensed of the current phenomenon: a personality, a book of memories, undoubtedly good sales. And then a book that you will buy in sale in a few months.
Umbilic your mother!
First, it shows that French literature is always struggling to invent, imagine, dreaming. Out of breath, self -fiction has been suffering for a few years from a glaring inspiration deficit. And here is that after having conscientiously looked at the navel, the fine flower of tricolor literature now plans to calmly up the whole umbilical cord.
We bet that these books will experience a nice course at the gondola’s head and that some will glean the precious literary prize at the end of the year. No one will spit on the graves if they report additional sales.
If these books were still taking the guts, shaken, turned upside down … But no. They are properly written and read easily. In short, good products that leave few memories, if not that of the receipt because, yes, a new book is expensive. They are like what has become of a good part of the French edition: a paurgism that strives to capture fashions.
Sometimes that a family story goes beyond the ordinary, even becoming an event, as The Familia Grande by Camille Kouchner, published in January 2021, who evoked the heavy taboo of incest. But that’s the exception. Because family life is generally very ordinary and rare are the feathers which manage to transcend it, make a work of it. However, as long as they have a storefront, this does not prevent them from being published.
“Girls and son of”, towards literary dynasties?
This abundance also says a form of contempt for readership, which we submit that it will bite the hook of the family intrigue, a celebrity press for the most prominent, a slightly voyeuristic fan club with regard to the others. With this rather disgusting feeling that it is enough to write to imagine that your life fascinates crowds. Without forgetting sometimes an embarrassing self (in her book, Justine Lévy scratches Raphaël Enthoven, who himself had not spared him because she herself), as if literature was summed up with Parisian worldly. That said a lot about the narrowness of our thoughts and a horizon that closes instead of widening.
Finally, between diseases and death, books play the sensitive string excess. To move the readership, nothing like a family tragedy zest that tears easy tears. Again, the phenomenon is not new but, amplified by the wave of novels feel goodhe now irrigates all the literature, for which the hospital room has become the ultimate decor.
In the world of cinema, birth often precedes essence. And doubt lasts a long time from the real talent of “daughters and sons of”. Does French literature want to take the same path? And offer us, generation after generation, the mediocre spectacle of ordinary family closed doors? We are already afraid of the emergence of literary dynasties and, to escape, we want to scream: get out of your bubble! Imagine! Be creative! Bump! Write, but really write! Dare!
Real literature probably remains in the shadows
The saddest thing is that all of this takes place at the expense of other books, with less known signatures, which leave the beaten track to build intrigues and characters drawn from their imagination and not from their little personal memories. However, the media promotion already benefits the “locomotives” of the start of the school year condemns them to go under the radars.
Long, hollow, easy, smooth: obviously and even if they are bookstore successes, most of these books will not resist the wear of time. We will therefore prefer Albert Camus who, with his famous “Today, mom is dead”
had the merit of not trying to do too much.
