The Confidant by Helene Gremillon
When Camille, an editor in Paris whose mother has just died, opens what she anticipates is another condolence letter and instead finds the beginning of a story of romance and intrigue. Each week she receives another installment, each with a new hint that suggests this story is not fiction but rather a message linking her to the main characters. And with each installment comes a new perspective on the events that occur, enlightening both Camille and the reader to a different layer of the story.
Mainly, the story is about a lie that leads to another and another. And each character has to fabricate his or her own version in order to survive what becomes a tangle of lies.
The book is a quick read that is very hard to put down. It’s the kind of book that you can’t get your head out of until you reach the end. Even when you are not reading, you are still thinking about the characters and feeling their struggles and their pain and trying to understand what is, indeed, the truth. For each of the characters lives their own truth. It is heartbreaking and tragic and there are many casualties of the lies. But there is hope, too, in the untangling.
I’d love to hear what others think of this book. It would be a great book club book!
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