Books: Witness for the Prosecution

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As a bereaved father, Simenon is entitled to any comfort he can find. But when he goes on to tell Marie-Jo what a splash her suicide has made in the press ("Friday, France-Soir published a front-page article with a very big headline"), the realization dawns that the author is parading another tribute to himself and his fame. Intimate Memoirs does not tell the story of a man's "attentive tenderness" toward his children, as Simenon incessantly contends; the book is a chronicle of self-love, an alternately fascinating and repellent testament of indomitable ego.

—By Paul Gray

Excerpt

When Teresa leaves us alone, as she always does, you look at me almost with hardness, and I am afraid to understand...

You say to me indeed, as if suffocating me?' with rage: 'Why her and not me?'

'Don't you understand, my little girl?'

'Understand what?'

I point to the bed. 'Teresa shares every part of my life.'

'So?'

I have always been afraid of what I am discovering. You point to the wedding ring you asked me to get you when you were eight. What can I answer? One day, you will speak of incest in relation to your mother, in referring to an unspeakable scene, which was such a trauma to you. And now you are saying . . .

'Whatever she has done for you, I can do as well, can't I?'