Two girls in Basque south-west France in the 1980s have been best friends since early childhood. Rose is the good one, studious and kind, with a sweetheart she plans to marry. Solange is the wild child: rebellious, dishonest and pregnant at 15. How to Make a Woman might sound like a Gallic take on Elena Ferrante territory, but it’s much more than that. Visceral and cerebral, with echoes of Simone de Beauvoir, it describes what it means to live in a world apparently created by and for men.
The novel unfolds as a triptych: Part One ‘According to Rose’; Part Two ‘As told by Solange’; and, finally, ‘Together’. Typically, while Rose goes on a school trip to Madrid, Solange survives a horrific birth, described in unflinching detail. Rose gets a degree and a job and dreams of married life. Solange wangles a scholarship to drama school in Bordeaux, leaving her unwanted baby to be cared for by her mother. Occasionally Rose slips away to have fun with Solange, swapping clothes and dancing crazily in Bordeaux nightclubs. Then Solange moves on, to Paris and London, chasing an acting career. There’s talk of TV slots and a movie audition, with hints of fame and wealth ahead in Hollywood. Part One ends with Rose’s marriage and the newly-weds safely together in bed.
In Part Two we get the story from Solange’s point of view, and the book springs rowdily to life as we see the reality behind the façade: vodka hangovers, one-night stands, dirty mattresses, inevitable disappointments – and the guts needed to keep going. World events form a background frieze: the Berlin Wall comes down; there’s famine in Africa. The stylish translation by Penny Hueston captures the humour and the pain.
Marie Darrieussecq is a distinguished literary figure, the author of more than 20 successful books, but she can get down and dirty with the kids to put a point across. In fleeting scenes, almost strobe-lit, like the clubs where the girls seek oblivion, we get the crucial moments – the choices, right and wrong. There are shocking episodes: no euphemisms for sexual acts or bodily fluids.
Past and present occasionally change places. On the novel’s first page there’s a flash-forward picture of Solange, dazzling in fashionably frayed denim shorts and knotted shirt, suntanned, looking over dark glasses as she sips an exotic drink, with a hint of a swimming pool in the background… glamour and success projected in one vivid snapshot. The truth emerges when the girls are reunited in the bittersweet final part.
Comments