Inès Bayard holds absolutely nothing back in her debut, This Little Family, translated from French by Adriana Hunter. I can say with confidence that, to date, this is the darkest book I have ever read, and I’ve read my share of dark stories. From the very beginning, we know exactly what’s about to unfold: It’s on the book’s description, and Bayard even starts us off with the inevitable and horrifying end. Her principal characters, Marie, Laurent and their baby, Thomas, will not survive past the pages of this book. And yet the reader will follow along, with a feeling akin to watching an evolving disaster that one cannot tear one’s eyes away from.
Marie has the perfect life, the perfect doting husband with a promising career in law, the perfect banking job, the perfect apartment in Paris where she always dreamed of living. They’ve both even reached that perfect point in their joint lives where they’re both ready to expand their family and have a baby.
However, Marie’s life is about to be turned upside down. Everything will change from bright and colorful to black and gray on the night that her new boss sexually assaults her. After her rapist threatens that she’ll lose the perfect life she’s worked so hard for if she dares to speak, Marie decides to keep silent. Still, her secret weighs on her and consumes her, and when she turns out pregnant, it will exacerbate the slow decay of her sanity.
“Who would understand her nightmare? Who'll be there to help her, to get her out of this dead end? The answer suddenly stabs at her stomach. It's all so clear: she's on her own. She'll be alone from start to finish, she'll battle relentlessly against her child unaided. If she is to take action, the only thing she can rely on is her own instinct. The long-awaited anger she's been anticipating finally takes hold of her.” – Inès Bayard, This Little Family
Though there’s a slight chance that the baby could be Laurent’s, Marie is sure it’s her assaulter’s. From the instant that she knows herself to be pregnant, Marie hates the baby. She contemplates abortion, but the right opportunity never comes and then it’s too late. Marie even throws herself down the stairs in an attempt to lose the baby, but her pregnancy remains intact. Eventually, she gives birth to a boy, and Marie goes to great lengths to keep her distance from him.
She hates him because of what he represents: a constant reminder of that traumatic night. She hates him because he’s a boy and because of what he can someday be capable of with just his masculine power. Marie neglects him, goes days without washing him, lets him go hours without eating, leaves him at the nursery from early morning until late at night and often even contemplates killing him.
Adding to her frustration is the fact that no one around her notices that something inside her has changed. Not her family and not even her husband, who seems happy to shove the idea of any odd behavior under the rug as long as Marie offers him sex. Marie resents everyone, but even when those close to her start realizing that something sinister is going on in her mind, everyone is happy to look the other way and pretend that everything is still under control.
This Little Family examines one woman’s slow descent into the dark, depressive state that her assault leaves her in. Marie feels let down, not just by those around her, but also by herself, as she sometimes wonders what she did to provoke her assault. She’s let down by societal norms, by the patriarchy, by life itself. Slowly, her marriage starts falling apart, her relationship with her family is damaged, and she even loses her job — a succession of events that will prompt her to commit the acts described in the opening pages of the book.
While the events described in This Little Family are brutal and revolting, the depths that Marie’s mind plummets to would not be realistic without them. Bayard begins this story almost in the style of a complex version of the popular children’s Dick and Jane books, detailing Marie’s perfect life through a style of prose that is minimalistic, direct and absolutely transparent. She never once minces words or downplays the severity of the narrative with poetry that could detract from her aim: to present the reader with nothing but the facts about Marie’s affliction.
This Little Family is a bleak, achingly realistic representation of how easy it can be for a woman to plunge into madness when she’s been pushed into desperation, when she’s been stripped of her dignity and of any hope of recollecting and rearranging the parts of herself that could make her whole again.
Anyone willing to delve into Bayard’s creation will need to come in with an open mind and compassion. It would be too easy to write Marie off as a deranged, mad woman. Bayard developed her narrative in such a way that readers would be able to see that Marie isn’t just a heartless woman, but a victim of circumstance. While in many cases, some women might be more resilient in overcoming strife, Bayard shows us the flip side of those cases. She exposes the damage that ignoring someone’s cry for help can have on one’s mental health and how that affects not just the bearer of the affliction but everyone around them.