Simenon applique sa formidable perception à une famille qui tient essentiellement à partager le même toit et la même planche lugubres. Le centre négatif de la maison est la mère, une femme à qui l'amour a été refusé et qui est poussée dans un isolement insupportable dont elle se réfugie en prenant le biberon. Minutieusement, incident par incident, Simenon accumule les pressions au sein de la maison et de la famille pour que cette femme taciturne et renfermée agisse avec ruse et cruauté et pourtant, on le sent, innocemment, puisqu'elle a d'abord été déshumanisée par son entourage. L'histoire est racontée telle qu'elle est vécue par sa fille qui, bien qu'absorbée par sa propre histoire d'amour, est la seule consciente du drame qui se joue avec la fatalité grecque. Il y a une densité et une profondeur remarquables dans la représentation par Simenon de l'interaction d'une maison et de ses habitants, et une manière très inhabituelle de résoudre un mystère de manière oblique, grâce à l'empathie d'un esprit compatissant. Simenon est ici à son meilleur. (à partir du rabat de la couverture)
Author
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret. Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life. Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed. He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain. During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)). Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981). In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award. In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.
