Bestselling French author Anne Berest returns to the podcast to discuss GABRIËLE, an atmospheric and exuberant novel about love, sex, art, revolution, and the life of her great-grandmother Gabriële Buffet-Picabia—muse and revolutionary partner to artist Francis Picabia. Anne discusses the legacy of creativity and pain in her lineage, the invisible labor of women who shape art behind the scenes, the fun she had co-writing with her sister, and the impact of being embraced by American readers. She also touches on her other book, THE POSTCARD, which began with an anonymous postcard listing the names of her Jewish relatives murdered during WWII, sparking an investigation into her family’s history and inherited trauma. You can listen to that episode, too! 

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome Anne. Thank you so much for coming on my podcast to discuss Gabriële, how was that? Okay. 

Anne: It was perfect. 

Zibby: Uh, so Ann and I are together here today in person, which is so wonderful. 

Anne: No, it's a great honor for me being here. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh 

Anne: Thank you. 

Zibby: Oh, runner up a Dayton literary Peace prize.

Unbelievable. So exciting. Obviously many people know you for the Postcard and I cannot explain how many people talk about the Postcard all the time. Have you read? Have you read? Have you book clubs everywhere? It's amazing. You are amazing. Your story's amazing. Why don't we start with you explaining that book to people who don't know it, and then we're gonna talk all about this book.

Anne: Okay?

Zibby: If that's okay. 

Anne: But first of all, what I want to say that, can you imagine, what does it mean for a French writer? First to be translated in English and then to have all these readers here in America. You cannot imagine how. How it, it's so strong and emotional for me. It's, it's, it's like a dream. And so I, I, I really want to say thank you to all the book clubs, all, all the people here, the book sailors, eh, to who supported my book. 

Zibby: They say, you're welcome.

It is amazing. It just, did you ever expect when you wrote any of this, what did you hope for? 

Anne: No, I remember, I remember. When I was in the plane from Paris to New York and I had this thought, I thought someone, someone bought a ticket for me to come. And that's, and it's, it's already huge. I, I already thanks for that.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Anne: I already thank for that. I'm already grateful for that, but I couldn't expect what, what will arrive. 

Zibby: Unbelievable. So tell your, the, the short version of your family story and that and the Postcard? 

Anne: Yes. So the Postcard tells a story of this Postcard, the true story of this Postcard my mother received in 2003, an anonymous Postcard with only four first names.

I. Written on it. Nothing else. No signature. Only four first names. Her grand first names of her grandparents, uncle and aunt who, who were killed during, uh, the second World War because they were, uh, Jews. And so my book is my investigation to find who was this anonymous sender, the investigation to find who were these people of my family because I didn't know nothing about them.

An investigation also, and also a quiz, like a quiz of identity. To, uh, because I was, I grew up in a totally secular family and a quiz for in, for identity to discover what does it mean? To be Jewish now, today for me. 

And what, what does it mean for you to be Jewish today? 

I wrote, um, several pages in the book to explain exactly.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: Uh, but if I, if I sum up. 

Zibby: Yes, sum up. 

Anne: I will say that maybe for me being Jewish, it means maybe spending my whole life. Asking to myself, what does that mean? To be Jewish. Yes. 

Zibby: I understand it's a deep investigation. 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: And we are always tested. 

Anne: Exactly. And always asking. 

Zibby: Yes. How can we do it better?

Anne: Exactly. 

Zibby: Better person, better Jewish person. 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: How can we help? 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: Give back. Well, you give back with your storytelling and with the Postcard, we learned all about one part of your family. And now with. Gabriële, yes. We are learning about the other. Another part of your family? 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: Which I found really interesting when you write in the book that your mother did not necessarily want you to do this.

Anne: No. 

Zibby: Tell me about that. 

Anne: She was furious. 

Zibby: Yeah. She was not happy. 

Anne: I have to explain that. I wrote this book first with my sister and it's very important for me to explain that. She's a writer, a French writer, an amazing writer, and we write it together. And I wrote it before the Postcard. 

Zibby: Oh, interesting. 

Anne: Yes.

Here, here in the USA, it comes out after, but in France, it was before. It was a previous book. And for me it was a little bit like the, the trigger to understand that. I loved writing on my family. And, uh, it was, it, it, this book was like opening a door on my writer process. And so the story of yes, my mother, yes, she was furious because she didn't want us to write the book about her grandmother. 

Zibby: And I'm not so sure how happy Gabriële would be either. 

Anne: Um, that's a good, uh, reflection. 

Zibby: Because you write about her relationship to her kids and her identity as a mother. 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: And it's not like she was so into that to begin with. Right. I mean, as you mentioned the book, the, the kids are like ghosts.

They're not in the story all that much. 

Anne: No. Yes. For her and for her husband. The interesting kids were the paintings. 

Zibby: Yes. And this. Mad, obsessive, dysfunctional relationship that she found herself in at a young age and despite all the infidelity and the opium addiction and the madness and all of it that she could not extract herself from and didn't want to.

Anne: No. In fact, sorry, I tweet, I tweet in French

Often it was said that they were geniuses, and it's also said that you can't be a genius and a good parent. 

Zibby: You can't be a genius and a good parent. Well, now a lot of parents are thinking, well, great. Now I'm not a genius. 

Anne: So they were genius and they had no time for kids. So it's a good news for art history.

Zibby: Yes. 

Anne: It was not a good news for my grandfather and my mother. 

Zibby: No. 

Anne: And if you, uh, read the Postcard, you know how my grandfather 

Zibby: Yes. 

Anne: Uh, committed suicide and, um, usually.. 

Zibby: That's young to age 27. 

Anne: Yes, exactly. Usually that's parents who tells, who tells the, the story of the family to, uh, children. But in our case with my sister, we wrote the story that our mother didn't know.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: And so when we finished the book, we said to her, no, that's the story of your grandmother. She knew nothing about her. So it's like, um, there's an inversion, an inversion about the way to how you tell the story in a family. 

Zibby: Yes. Wow. And actually what you did in terms of the structure of the book was so interesting because you end it with the birth of your grandfather.

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: Before and you fast forward and tell us what happens later and go back and forth in time, but essentially it's all the back story and then we stop there. 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: And then you just have like a little bit about some of the other great stuff or crazy stuff in, in the family, but it's also about what does it mean to be the descendant of one person in the family line.

Who was born with so much darkness and you have all these references to the light and the weight of the light versus the dark, which I found fascinating. 

Anne: You know, it, it, it made me, it makes me think that when I was, um, 25, something like that, I was going through, uh, through a, a, a depression, and I went to meet a, a therapist.

And this therapist was an expert on family tree therapy. 

Zibby: Mm. Family tree therapy. Interesting. 

Anne: And it, it really changed my life. And, uh, this person, uh, explained to me that if you cure, uh, your family tree for your dissidents you also cure it for your ancestors. 

Zibby: Oh. Love that. 

Anne: So that's why it's really important to try to understand what happened before you because you move everything and for example, this therapist, she explained to me all the repetition s and crazy things like for example, my grandfather, so who was born? In the end of the book, he has the exact, exact same birth date as me. And if you work on your family tree, you will find a lot, a lot, a lot of coincidences who are maybe not coincidences.

But how, for example, how we are given the first names in your family, what does it mean? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: If you, uh, bear the first name of your grandmother, of your great-grandfather. It means that you, you, you, you, you come on earth with something like a, a backpack. 

Zibby: Yeah. Baggage. 

Anne: Baggage, yes. And it's really interesting to know that you have it because you can feel something heavy on your shoulder and you don't know what is it, but if you work on your family tree, you can discover that. Hmm, maybe that's, that's my grandfather. Maybe that's my grand grand aunt. And in my books, Gabriële, and also The Post Card, that's the, the, the, this work I try to understand. Uh, not only for me, but for everybody.

How, how you, you are influences, uh, influenced, influenced by things that have happen before you. And that even with the self memory . The memory you have. Yeah. In yourself, memory of emotions, of traumas, that's all that, uh, aquarium that I, I try to discover with this boost. 

Zibby: Yes. This notion of inherited trauma.

Yes. Which I'm so glad is rising to attention and getting validation because we know this. Right. But now the science, but now as it becomes more scientific and accepted. It's like, good. 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: That's what we thought. It's hard to escape our past, of course. There is a lot about the art world and all sorts of characters, how they intersect Marcel Duchamp and Picasso and like all these people throughout, which as someone who loves art was, it was very exciting to see.

But despite all of that, I feel like the most interesting parts were is the relationship between Gabriële and her artist. What is his name again? Oh my God. Your grandfather, blah, blah, blah. 

Anne: Picabia. 

Zibby: Picabia. Yeah. I only read it like a thousand times. Yes. The relationship between her and Picabia was so passionate, but without the physical passion. So intellectually charged this meeting of the minds. And you have a funny scene towards the beginning where they first physically get together and they're both like really disappointed with that which I'm like, how did she find that out? Like a diary or something. I'm like, this is going deep here. And then because of  Picabia dalliances and his affairs with other women throughout their relationship. Towards the end where he inscribes to my friend, to Ms. Ami and she is just a friend. It shows like the trajectory of what happens when two people sort of a link in life, for better, for worse, for real.

Tell me like, what do you do with a, with a relationship like that, and then what does it do to like you and your relationships?

Anne: We found he found letters in the archives at almost the end of his life. 

Zibby: Yes, yes. 

Anne: We found the, uh, archives of, uh, the letters that he had sent to Gabriële all through until the end of his life, all through until the end of his life. 

So That's amazing. 

Zibby: Wow. 

Anne: Were divorced for years and years. And he's still writing to her.

Gabriële, what do you think of that? I need your help of that. And you know what? In these letters, they never, never speak about their children. Never. 

Zibby: They, they would not make it today. No helicopter parenting and no thanks. 

Anne: They are only speaking about paintings. That's fascinating. And sometimes you, he, he writes poems for other women and you send it to Gabriële to know what she thinks.

They were, yes, Lincoln linked forever. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: In something that is bigger than ego. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: And that's fascinating and also discouraging. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Anne: In regard of your own life. And you say, okay. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Anne: Uh, they found them each other. And, um, what's interesting is that when she was young as a young adult, she was a, she wanted to be a composer. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. A composer. Yes. She was clearly talented. She had all this early success. 

Anne: She was very good. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Anne: Very talented. But what's interesting is that she knew that she will be a good composer and. Well known, but when she met  Picabia, she knew that together it'll be a revolution.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: So she accepted to, to quit her ego. As a composer to become a crew, a couple a partner. Which will go through centuries. You have to be very smart. To understand that. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: Being too is better than being alone. 

Zibby: Yeah. You, you mentioned that at first it seems sort of anti-feminist, right?

That she gave everything up.

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: But then you point out, no, no, no. This is her choice. 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: She made this choice. 

Anne: Yes. And a lot of women at that time were under masculine power. She's not representative at all of this period. Her freedom, the way she could, uh, travel, the, her relationship with her husband, the freedom they had, they had a love triangle with Marcel Duson.

It's, it's not representative. And maybe you can find that, uh, she, she could have been that it was a shame that she gave up everything. But in this case, as you were saying, it was her choice. And it's, it's a, a period in art history and that's what fascinating us where artists were a crew. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: They wanted to live together, to create together, to travel together. It's not like today or every artist is alone thinking of the art market and no, no, no.

It was not about money. 

Zibby: The movement.

Anne: It was a movement. It was about love and it was about feeling alive. And the other thing, very important that she discovered. That she had a skill, she had, she was gifted of something that ha has no name no word. To say that is that she could see inside an artist what the, how to help him.

To give the best part of himself. That's a skill. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Anne: And all artists know that some people has this skill. And that needs them. That's why all, all artists needed her, Picabia the night she spent with Wahez helping him to compose his, uh, his music and, um, what's interesting is that all the artists know that .

That some people have that inside them and they were all very grateful to Gabriële. When you, uh, read the, um, letters . The books. They always says how important she's, but what's interesting is that when this story was written by, by art historians. They forget to write that right first because she was a woman, and then because that kind of job of talent was like not interesting to, to the storytelling. And you have to, to imagine an artist like God alone, uh, making masterpieces with, with nobody to help him. But that's not the truth. Writers know that. Painters know that. Musicians know that you need one, two persons around you. 

Zibby: So tell me who you're. Who do, who do you surround yourself with when you make your, 

Anne: A lot, A lot of, of, I need, I have around me some readers.

I know that I, each book I had to ask them, they will help me. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: Of course, my editor, she has this skill that I think that you can't create alone. You need the other, and that's beautiful to say that you need the others, and that's, that's what you see in this book. They are always chatting.

Together always. What do you think? What, what are you, come with me. We can exchange our paintings. You, you will paint on my, uh, on my painter and I will paint on yours. And that. I think that's maybe the good moment now to remember that these guys, these women that revolution and art, they did it as a crew, as a generation. 

Zibby: It's amazing. So how did learning all of this about both sides of your family and all of this background and the family tree therapy and all of it, how do you live your life differently if you do? Or like how has it impacted your relationships? Like what do you do with all this?

Anne: I, me, I am, I'm kind of erosional person. So I really think that they are on my shoulders. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: They're really, I really think that they are talking to me and, uh, for, I will give you an example in the book, Francis and Gabriële they went to New York. I know for the Amari Show and what happened that Gabriële, she was the only one to speak in English.

They were the only French to come and because she was the only one one to speak in English, she could say whatever she wanted. And she said the most important painter in France is Marcel Duchamp. It was, it was totally false. Totally. Marcel Deon, he was little brothers, brother of two brothers. The two brothers, elder brothers were the known guys.

The stores in Paris, but not Marcel at all. But because he was the only to be able to speak. She could explain that she was, he was the star and people starting here in the USA to have interest on Marcel. And of course, because he was a very smart guy and a great artist, he became so well known in the USA.

But that's funny to know how does it, did it start and because of that when I knew that my book will be translated in the USA in English for the Postcard, I had in my head like a voice who tell me now you have to learn how to speak English because you go to the USA. And so, uh, my great-grand, uh. Uh, daughter, like, you know, like your grandmother was, give you advices.

I heard, I heard her telling me, no, you work and you, you, you, you learn how to speak English. Now every day you learn, you, you, you learn. 

Zibby: You just learned how to speak English. 

Anne: Yes. But because I, I knew that for, for them it was something so important. 

Zibby: Wow. That's very impressive. 

Anne: But I, I heard this voice inside me.

Zibby: No, I un, I, I understand. It's still just like, that's awesome. That's really great. I feel like I can't learn too many new things at my age anywhere. I can learn everything about books and history, but I don't know. Languages. 

Anne: I dunno. So hard. So hard. So hard. Oh my gosh. My big problem, uh, with English is the pronunciation.

But it sounds so good when you speak English. It's so, it's a pronunciation. No, it's amazing. It's so difficult. 

Zibby: It, it sounds great. You're doing great. No, it's, it, you make it sound so, um, so much prettier than it's, so 

Anne: Thank you. Yeah, because me, I feel as. As if I were a 10-year-old sign. 

Zibby: No, no, no. This is so impressive.

And also, you know, we know how you write like you and your sister. 

Anne: Yes. 

Zibby: Written this amazing masterpiece of so much information that you turn into this. Beautiful story. I mean, the amount of trips these people took, like, and now they're in Switzerland and now they've gone to Buenos Aires and now you're gonna to New York and now they. 

Anne: That's crazy.

Zibby: I'm like, what are these, they never sat still. 

Anne: That's crazy.

Zibby: Right? Like I feel like as fast as the ideas were flying, they were moving and I felt like at that time they wasn't quite as much nonstop moving the way we do. But these, like everybody was all over the place. 

Anne: I was also fascinating by that. How often they move and, but to, we made three years of researches because we knew nothing.

We are not art historians, so we had everything to discover. And, uh, after three years of researching, like as if we were writing, I don't know, like, uh, uh, uh, essay or we started to write, and we are not historians, we are novelists, we are writers. So we wanted to write it as, uh, an extraordinary novel.

But everything is true. And in the, in the French version, you have all the nuts in the footnotes. Footnotes, because we wanted to show to people that it's true. It's true. And um, after, so we started to write and because my, my sister is also a writer. She's very famous in France as a writer, we started to write a chapter.

I wrote a chapter, she wrote a chapter, and then we exchange. And I rewrote what she had written and she rewrote that what I had, I have written. And so it was amazing to see how the other cat change a world. It, it was a unique, unique experience. 

Zibby: And do you feel like it brought you closer together? 

Anne: We were very close and we had, we had also a lot of arguing. It was so funny, but it was like the same experience, the same thing as playing together when we were child. Writing together and playing together was the same thing. And it, so it was so emotional to rebound this feeling you had when you are playing as a child with your sister and yes. And now we want to do it again. 

Zibby: Oh, good. Yes. What are you gonna write about next? 

Anne: Oh, we want to, to write about, if don't know if you remember in the Postcard, Gabriële. Mm-hmm. Because that's the young Gabriële. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Anne: Gabriële. But in the Postcard. She's old with her daughter they are in this resistance net network.

Zibby: Yes. 

Anne: In the Postcard, this resistance network takes three chapters, but we discover that we can write a novel just about the network. So we want to do that only on, on, on this period of the war. 

Zibby: I can't wait to read that. That will be wonderful. So after all of this, do you have advice for people taking on big historical deep dive family projects?

Anne: Okay. First advice, if you search, you will find because what is amazing is that all people, all they give them, everybody leaves the trace. Everybody leaves the trace. Even, even you think it's impossible. I will find nothing. No, no, no. Because it, it, it can be ir irrational too. But I'm sure that when you start to work on your ancestors they are so happy that they start to give you signs. They start to move and if you really are concentrate and if you follow your instinct, you don't know why you, you feel that you have to read this book, you don't know why so something threw you on to see a museum and on, on a subject, you don't know why, but that's the science of your ancestors, really and it, it, it can take 10 years, 15 years, it's a long travel. But I don't know one person who told me I need, I, I don't have found something. No. No, because the dead people, they are so grateful to you that they help you really. 

Zibby: Wow. Now I feel bad. I haven't been helping my, my ancestors enough.

I have to get to work. Make them happy. 

Anne: Yes, yes, yes. 

Zibby: Okay. Who knows what we'll find. 

Anne: You will find. And you have now with internet, for example, um, for, um, the Jews you have in jerusalem, you have all the files. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: To find the names. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Anne: You have now with internet . It's easier to find the clues and, and yes, it try it amazing.

Zibby: Well, congratulations. This was amazing. Your story is amazing. 

Anne: Thank you. 

Zibby: Both sides. I learned so much. I feel like I had this whole education, particularly in this time of intense creativity, that I didn't feel like I knew enough about that now. I was just like living with all these important people. 

Anne: I'm so happy you say that.

Zibby: So thank you. It was really, really amazing. And of course, the Postcard. Oh my gosh. 

Anne: So thank you. 

Zibby: Congratulations. Thank you. 

Anne: Thank you.