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Petite Mort
Beatrice Hitchman
2013, 329 pages
Fiction
Hitchman’s debut novel is a well-plotted thriller that flashes between Adèle, the star of a legendary silent film destroyed by fire in 1914 at the Pathé studio, and Juliette, a journalist trying to get to the truth behind Adèle’s memoirs. In 1913 Adèle, a seamstress who’s trying to break into the film industry, falls into the orbit of director André Durand and his wife Luce, a former actress. André invites Adèle to become Luce’s assistant and to star in his next film, with tragic consequences. After its completion, the film is destroyed in a studio fire and assumed lost. In 1967, Juliette’s article about the discovery of a long-lost print of André and Adèle’s film prompts Adèle to begin writing her memoirs with Juliette’s assistance. But as Juliette soon learns, Adèle’s not telling the truth.
The book feels like a film noir movie, with jumps between Adèle’s point of view and Juliette’s, heartless characters striving for fame, and a plot that twists and turns before it resolves with an unexpected and satisfying ending. Although Adèle is not a sympathetic character, I found myself rooting for her to win against all the odds. The twist ending was both surprising and unsurprising, as I found myself going back to find the clues I had missed on the first read. Highly recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction or film noir.
