THE SPOON
Dany Héricourt
(Éditions Liana Levi, 238 pages, 2020)
***TRANSLATION SAMPLE AVAILABLE HERE***
***NOMINATED FOR THE Prix Stanislas***
***NOMINATED FOR THE PRIX ENVOYÉ PAR LA POSTE***
***NOMINATED FOR THE PRIX DU PREMIER ROMAN***
***RIGHTS HAVE BEEN SOLD TO SOLFERINO IN ITALY***
My grandfather, an Englishman, likes to say our lives’ little stories are born of a larger History. My grandmother, who is Welsch, counters that it’s the opposite, that it’s the total of our lives’ little stories that make up History with a capital H.
—Prelude to The Spoon
Seren first sees the spoon at her father’s bedside in a teacup, likely the last cup he’d had before he died. “It is beautiful. Solid. Mysterious.” It has the weight of legacy, of real workmanship, embossed with vines, initials, other enchanting figures, and quickly becomes a matter of serious reflection for Seren, who is unable to articulate her grief for her father, but recognizes in the appearance of the spoon the beginning of a quest, whose question of origin must be answered.
Seren has a lead: The spoon may have originated from the Burgundy wine region. She leaves her family behind in Wales with their words for sadness (“The Eskimos have snow, the Japanese have knives, the Welsh have melancholy”), armed instead with her schoolgirl French, to find the spoon’s family chateau. As she drives through the French countryside, memories play across her mind: of her mother, her brother Al, her brother Dai, her grandparents, and, of course, her father. The road is one of chance encounters, a fleeting romance, a beekeeper, and, at last, a Latin teacher, who takes her to the Chateau Ballerey where the spoon’s history, her father’s history, has been waiting for her.
The Spoon is the story of a girl of eighteen, about to become a young woman, who sees the world as an artist does: with pockets of magic, surreality, and curiosity. It is also the story of her grief, which she carries in her chest like a shovelful of sludge. What will it take for her to face it, to understand it, or even feel it? When will Seren allow herself to cry?
This is also in many ways a coming-of-age story—a thoughtful and enigmatic Young Adult novel in the vein of Sharon Creech’s Walk Two Moons or The Wanderer. Yet it transcends the genre, and takes the protagonist beyond the confines of her age. With the astuteness of an artist unfolding her easel, who sees in the surface of things the possible secrets, Dany Héricourt positions the reader at Seren’s side as Wales, and childhood, disappear behind us.
Dany Héricourt grew up in Ghana and the United Kingdom before relocating to France. She is an established acting and dialogue coach in the film industry, where she has worked with Éric Rochant, Thomas Vinterberg, and Ralph Fiennes. She is most widely recognized for her work on Call Me by Your Name (2017). The Spoon is her first novel.