what we must remember, what we would forget…How do we carry the past when memory begins to splinter, when daily words and faces elude us while the distant past haunts and torments? How do we carry the past as the adult children of ageing parents whose vitality has given way to a dependency the parent cannot accept? And where are the safe places for our elders in a society with no patience for the slow and the old, a society that sees them as products for an industry of ‘care’ that exists first for its share-holders?These questions weave through l’Aubier as Isabelle Llasera explores the final stages of her mother’s life in a residential home in the South of France and as her mother’s dementia escalates in an environment where profit ranks above care. Written with grace, tenderness and extraordinary clarity, the narrative is addressed to ‘you’. And so we are immersed in a story that brims with frustration (the clothes that disappear, the cold air conditioning in November, the persistent odour of urine in the lounge…) alongside small acts of rebellion that we revel in (the unauthorised car trip in the rain and snow with the best rainy coffee ever). And through it all, the fragments of a long and accomplished life dissolving into moments that won’t let go — the horror of whether three Jewish children ever reached safety or the teenage joy of the fur coat her father gave her…Deeply personal and searingly political, without a whiff of didacticism, l’Aubier will make you laugh and cry. But most of all it will leave you with questions. Dignity? Memory? Identity? Responsibility? So many questions society needs to face if we are to retain humanity.
