Emmanuel Carrère's New Book Chronicles His Family's Complex History

The memoir explores the life of Carrère's mother, Hélène, who rose from stateless poverty to become head of the Académie Française. It also covers his father's background and the family's ties to Russia and the Nazis. The review praises the intricate portrait of this elite French family.

The book traces Hélène's unlikely ascent from refugee childhood to the pinnacle of French cultural life, a rise marked by fierce determination and a refusal to engage with anything she couldn't master. Her father's violent death in 1944, tied to Nazi collaboration allegations, became a family secret that Carrère later breached in an earlier novel, causing a rift with his mother that took years to mend.

The memoir also documents the slow dissolution of his parents' marriage following Hélène's affair, and the family's Georgian heritage, which connects to cousin Salome Zourabichvili's presidency. The Ukraine war further exposed political divisions, with Hélène's sympathetic view of Putin clashing with her son's dismay and his subsequent travels to Georgia and Ukraine.