The Use of Photography

September 15, 2024
A Nobel Prize-winning author and her journalist lover tell the story of their affair. In 2003, Ernaux began a passionate relationship with her co-author, Marc Marie. At the time, Ernaux had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment and was about to have surgery for breast cancer. The author soon discovered that her physical desire for Marie was matched by an equal desire to take pictures of the "material representation[s]" of their sexual encounters. When she told Marie that she was photographically recording the "[clothing] compositions...that organized themselves according to unknown laws, movements and gestures," she learned that he had felt a desire to do the same. In this book, Ernaux pairs 14 of the more than 40 photos they took together with two essays, each produced independently of the other, by the author and by Marie. The photos record colorful "landscape[s]" left in the aftermath of encounters that took place over several months in multiple locations, including various rooms in Ernaux's home and foreign hotels. As they describe each "scene," the essays provide details about Ernaux and Marie's developing relationship, like how they spent their time together on the day of the photograph or the songs they chose to represent "the elusive succession of their days." With her trademark clarity and simplicity, Ernaux's essays also grapple with her struggle to come to accept both her diagnosis and the physical changes brought about by her cancer treatments, like baldness, loss of body hair, and scarring. The result of the pair's unique word-and-image collaboration is a deeply poignant yet also celebratory expression of eroticism. Luminous and reflective writing in the face of death.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2024
On mornings-after, the lovers felt that their cast-off clothes and shoes created an "arrangement born of desire and accident" that should be documented. And so they agreed to photograph these passion scenes. They also felt the need to write about these intricate floor compositions. So picture-taking and writing became part of their lovemaking. This was 20 years ago, when Ernaux, now a Nobel laureate, was being treated for breast cancer, and journalist and photographer Marie stayed close by her side. Here they share 14 photographs and their written responses, which form a duet of eroticism and musings on time and death, disorder and art. Ernaux is bracingly matter-of-fact about sex and her body's response to chemotherapy. Marie is similarly frank, and both are funny as well as contemplative as they express feelings, describe their lives, and share memories and favorite songs. Like I Ching hexagrams, the tangles of clothing and shoes serve as a form of divination of life and nothingness, light and dark. This is an intimate, beautiful, and evocative pairing of image and word, voice and viewpoint, love and ritual.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 19, 2024
Nobel Prize winner Ernaux (The Young Man) and French journalist Marie recount their early-2000s affair through the lens of 14 photographs in this tender and evocative memoir. The pair met in 2003, when Ernaux was recovering from surgery and undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. After their first few sexual encounters, Ernaux began photographing the aftermath, resulting in lush, jumbled, and erotic images punctuated with lurid red lingerie or a pair of upright shoes that seemed to suggest a ghostly presence. In alternating chapters, Ernaux and Marie analyze photographs from that period, discussing the specter of death that hung over their trysts (at one point, Ernaux bought herself a funeral plot), the sweet devotion Marie felt for his ailing “mermaid woman,” and eventually, the end of their relationship. Each author’s candor—about their sexuality as well as the importance of such an intense connection at that crossroads in their lives—is remarkable, and is enhanced rather than obscured by the framework of photographic analysis. The results are generous, steamy, and unexpectedly moving. Photos.