My Devotion

June 15, 2020
An ambiguous relationship is turned inside out in this intensely vivid novel. Helen and Frank have lived together for decades--first in Amsterdam and later in Normandy. The nature of their relationship is somewhat murky. They're devoted to each other, but they both take other lovers; at one point, Helen gets married and moves to Boston. Quiet Helen is a writer and a scholar while Frank develops an international reputation as a painter. This swift, intense novel is narrated by Helen, who, in the present day, reflects on a shared life that ends, finally, in spectacular violence. French novelist Kerninon's prose has a rare clarity, and the details of Helen and Frank's life accrue with assiduous force. We're told early on that the story will end with an innocent death, but whose death approaches, and why, and how, isn't revealed until the very end. Helen emerges as a richly complicated figure, full of contradictions. Unfortunately, the same isn't true of Frank. He takes advantage of Helen's nurturing--for years, she handles their domestic lives while, oblivious, he carries on painting--but beyond that, his interiority never comes into focus. This is partly due to the unnecessary gimmick on which the novel depends: In the present day, Helen has run into Frank on the street, and her narration of the novel is supposed to be a kind of monologue that she addresses to him. That gimmick tests the reader's credulity. Still, the novel unwinds with such a propulsive momentum that these minor flaws are easily forgiven. This is Kerninon's first book to appear in English; hopefully, there will be many more. Kerninon's novel charms and unsettles to an equal degree, and a few small flaws fail to detract from the book's power.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 22, 2020
A woman recounts her long, complicated relationship with a famous painter in French writer Kerninon’s stinging English-language debut. After Helen, nearly 80, unexpectedly encounters her long-ago lover Frank Appledore in London, she begins a monologue directed at Frank of their meeting in 1950s Rome, where their diplomat parents were stationed. After Helen leaves for Amsterdam to study literature, she invites Frank to stay with her. In their 20s, Helen dedicates herself to a publishing career, while Frank drifts until he finally attempts painting at 28. Despite periodic sex and Helen’s domestic labor undergirding Frank’s sensational rise, they never become a couple (“The girls who slept with you always wanted to spend time with me afterwards, no doubt to make sure that I was not your partner,” she says). Frank’s marriage to a gallery owner ruptures their bond, and Helen leaves to marry an architect. Upon discovering Frank has a son, Ludwig, Helen, grieving her own infertility, abandons her failing marriage and joins Frank in Normandy to raise Ludwig. In a spiteful moment, Helen reveals a secret that upends the family and leads to gut-wrenching consequences. Kerninon’s perceptive unfolding of Helen’s pains in elegant prose makes for a poignant portrait of buried frustrations. Readers looking for a slow burn will enjoy this tragic novel.