Jours brûlants à Key West

by Brigitte Kernel

Avril 1955, Françoise Sagan, dix-neuf ans, est en tournée promotionnelle aux États-Unis à l’occasion de la sortie américaine de Bonjour tristesse. Fatiguée par le rythme intense des interviews, des séances photo et des dîners mondains, elle ne veut plus quitter sa chambre d’hôtel. Tennessee Williams, qui est en train de corriger La Chatte sur un toit brûlant, l’invite alors à le rejoindre à Key West où il demeure. Il n’est pas seul ; Frank Merlo, son amant, vit aussi dans cette maison du 1431 Duncan Street et Carson McCullers, l’auteur du roman culte Le Cœur est un chasseur solitaire, dont l’état de santé est inquiétant,vient de s’y installer pour un temps indéterminé.
Huit ans plus tard, juste avant sa mort en 1963, Frank Merlo décide de raconter ces deux semaines, ces jours brûlants à Key West, qui ont bouleversé sa vie.

267 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Denis]

The premise of this novel is immensely intriguing and attractive: what happened during those few weeks when Françoise Sagan, the very young superstar French writer (whose "Bonjour Tristesse" is taking America by storm) visits one of her idols, Tennessee Williams, who’s living in Key West with fellow writer Carson McCullers and with his lover, Frank Merlo? The author, Kernel, has evidently done a lot of research, and she also makes of herself a character in the story she narrates. It all works pretty well, and her vision of what may have taken place between those four intense and fascinating characters is persuasive, believable, and interestingly developed. She definitely has an understanding of who they were, behind the façade, and she especially has great tenderness and empathy for Merlo, who’s the main narrator of those imaginary memoirs. The problem, as far as I’m concerned, is Kernel’s writing style, that I find often quite banal, when not heavy-handed, clumsy, and lacking in subtlety. As a result the book is very uneven, and if, toward the end, real emotions and heartbreak are palpable, I often sensed that the author’s lackluster writing style kept the novel from really rising to the level it could have reached. If only Sagan herself, or Williams, had written that story…

[Marie-Pierre Soriano]

intw de B. Kernel
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