There are books that feel less like narratives and more like whispers – soft confidences shared between dusk and dawn. Lisette, Catherine Rey’s elegy to a woman as spirited as she was enigmatic, belongs to this rare category. Rey reflects on the life of Lisette Nigot, intertwining her story with her own. This is a tale of love, laughter, loss, and ultimately, liberation – a book about the paradoxical dance between life and death, youth and age, invisibility and remembrance.
The book opens with a poignant quote from Patti Smith: “In time, we often become one with those we once failed to understand.” It is a perfect lens for what follows – a tender exploration of the barriers we place between ourselves and others, and the quiet revelations that dissolve them. Rey invites us into Lisette’s world, one of contradictions: a woman who made fun of life’s absurdities yet embraced them with a sense of humour as sharp as Balzac’s.
Lisette is introduced as if she stepped out of a movie set – effortlessly glamorous, defiantly independent, and deeply human. Her well-shaped legs served her well, and her life, peppered with stories of taking Marilyn Monroe shopping or preferring married men, feels like an ode to joie de vivre. Yet beneath the sparkle, Rey captures the melancholy of a woman grappling with time’s inexorable passage. “Being old is like having to wear a mask in a grotesque carnival,” Lisette confesses.
Catherine Rey met Lisette in Perth, a city both women described as stifling for a writer. Rey’s own move to Sydney mirrored Lisette’s restless spirit, and their stories intertwine, weaving a narrative of shared truths. The writing feels conspiratorial, like a secret passed from Rey’s pen to the reader’s ear. Lisette’s wit, her existential musings, and her tender defiance against a world that too often sidelines the elderly, come alive in prose that murmurs rather than shouts.
At its heart, Lisette is a meditation on visibility. Rey captures the ache of those rendered invisible by age, offering Lisette – and all she represents – a luminous presence on the page. Rey writes, “Time exists only in other people’s eyes,” a line that resonates throughout this philosophical exploration of mortality. The second half of the book, which details the final hours of Lisette’s life, is handled with a rare grace. Rey never intrudes; instead, she observes, honouring the mystery of Lisette’s choice.
In its portrayal of philosophical suicide, Lisette evokes the stoic dignity of Socrates and the existential defiance of Sartre. Lisette’s departure – somehow informed by the controversial “Exit International” association – raises questions about autonomy, mortality, and the ethics of assisted dying. Yet, even as it grapples with these profound themes, the book never loses its humanity.
Rey’s words are filled with paradox. Life is described as “a nonsensical farce,” yet the narrative insists on its beauty. Death is portrayed as “a smile after swallowing life,” both terrifying and transcendent. When my ten-year-old asked me, “Papa, is the book you’re reading for kids?” I hesitated, unsure how to answer. Lisette is neither for children nor adults – it’s for those who have danced with darkness and emerged with light, for those who have glimpsed life’s fragility and yet embraced it fully.
Olivier Vojetta
Blog: https://www.oliviervojetta.com/
Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@oliviervojetta
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