Lili Is Crying

by Hélène Bessette, Kate Briggs (translator)

Lili is Crying, Hélène Bessette's debut novel, explores the fraughtness and depth of the troubling relationship between Lili and her mother Charlotte. With a near-mythic quality, Bessette's stripped-back prose evokes at once the pain of thwarted love – of desire run cold – and the promise of renewal. Lauded by critics on its initial publication in 1953 for its boundary-pushing style, unusual economy of expression, strange humour and sheer vivacity, 
Lili is Crying announces Bessette's singular take on the 'poetic novel'. This edition marks the very first translation of Bessette's work into English, by Windham-Campbell Prize-winning author and translator Kate Briggs.

Genres: France, Fiction, Classics, French Literature, Literary Fiction, Modern Classics, Womens

194 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Hélène Bessette est née « obscurément » à Levallois, faubourg de Paris, le 31 août 1918. Lorsqu’un journaliste lui demande pourquoi « obscurément », elle répond : « Parce que ce terme me plaît, et que les détails ne regardent personne ». Elle peut être considérée comme l’une des pionnières du Nouveau roman.

C’est après un voyage en Nouvelle-Calédonie où elle est partie trois ans avec son mari pasteur qu’elle se met à écrire. Elle n’a que trente-cinq ans quand Raymond Queneau la rencontre le jeudi 4 décembre 1952 dans les bureaux du 5, rue Sébastien Bottin, et lui fait signer un contrat qui l’engage chez Gallimard pour dix livres à venir. « Enfin du nouveau ! », s’exclame-t-il, soucieux de faire connaître celle qu’il considère comme un écrivain majeur du XXe siècle.

Hélène Bessette publie treize romans chez Gallimard, et en écrit encore beaucoup qui ne seront jamais publiés. Un des romans publiés, Les Petites Lilshart, qui est une version remaniée des Petites Lecocq, est retiré des ventes en 1956 après un procès pour outrage aux bonnes mœurs et diffamation. Aussi une pièce de théâtre. Le tout en seulement vingt ans, de 1953 à 1973. Elle obtient le prix Cazes de la brasserie Lipp pour son premier roman, Lili pleure, en 1954, et ses autres romans sont régulièrement retenus sur les listes du prix Goncourt.

Elle est institutrice, à Roubaix, à Saint-Prest et à Saint-Georges-sur-Eure, mais démissionne en 1962 pour se consacrer à l’écriture. Longtemps soutenue et admirée par des écrivains comme Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute, Simone de Beauvoir ou Dominique Aury, et par les critiques Alain Bosquet et Claude Mauriac, elle reste injustement méconnue. Son dernier roman, Ida ou le délire, est publié en 1973.

Elle meurt trente ans plus tard, dans l’indifférence générale, le 10 octobre 2000, au Mans.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lili is crying.
Lili is always crying, naturally.
Lili is always crying because of her mother.
Her desperate mother.
Codependent mother.
Bitter mother.
Misandrist mother.
Martyr of a mother.
Lili is crying, but it's also her own fault, beautiful (spineless) as she is, she has no shortage of marriage offers.
A life of her own is there for the taking,
her girlfriends push her
—GO, GO, GO! (with giggles behind her back)
But her mother.
They're two peas in a pod, naturally.
Never one without the other, not for long, no.
Which is why any man pursuing Lili will soon discover
After one day
three days
thirty days
ninety days
Lili will never choose them.

It's a domestic drama, exquisitely told.
Bessette thrills the reader
with poetic prose (verse)
with playful prose (verse)
with humor (dark)
with broken lines
with defiance of the norm
with words that slips from the mind to the mouth and back again so smoothly we're never really sure what is dialogue, what is inner turmoil.
Each line with a cadence
And,
A rhythm that begs the reader to read aloud.

It's the kind of book you want to shout about
—THIS IS IT
The book we've been looking for.
The book that shocks us out of the doldrums brought on by contemporary literature.
—See what is possible when the rules are bent
When the story is told by anyone
Or,
Everyone.

Naturally, I recommend it wholeheartedly.

[Yahaira · Rating 5 out of 5]

this feels fresher than stuff published last week

------------------

This one surprised the hell out of me. There’s so much energy here and I kept asking myself how was this 1950’s novel not translated until now?! I couldn’t put it down and begrudgingly went to bed with about 30 pages left. This reads fresher than new releases I’ve read this year while also giving me hints of a Beckett play. While yes Lili is crying and it’s frustrating to watch (this mom is beyond codependent, she’s claustrophobic), the book also has this weird little humor running through it that makes you wonder if the characters are in on it. The prose is spare to downright stark, but also destabilizing like its form (it’s a poetic novel), you have em dashes denoting speech but at other times you don’t know if the character just thought something cruel or heartbreaking or if they actually said it. There are fragments, a lot of white space, and repeated sentences. Time is also weird, especially at the beginning; how old is Lili?! How much time has passed on this page? In this novel? For most of the book you don’t even know what era it is, until the world comes crashing in. There’s a false sense of choice here and Lili’s acts range from defiant to passive.

[Ella Roose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Psychoanalysts would eat this up

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lili, a woman in mid-twentieth-century France, wants to fall in love and start a life of her own. Her mother, Charlotte, does not want this for her. Hasn’t she sacrificed everything to raise Lili? Doesn’t she deserve her daughter’s constant devotion? This is a story about the devastating effects of a toxic mother-daughter relationship.

I was actually so shocked to learn (after reading it!) that this is a rediscovered book from the 1950s. It touches on so many current literary trends, and if anything, it feels more relevant than ever today. The structure is unorthodox, making this feel more like a novel-in-verse than a work of prose. Charlotte’s encroachment in Lili’s life to the point of sabotage also feels very much in conversation with modern discourse about narcissistic parents and generational trauma. Lili is not an altogether sympathetic character either. She treats several other people in this book terribly. But with a parent like Charlotte, did she stand a chance?

This was a beautiful, slow read. I feel like this one will really appeal to Clarice Lispector fans. Its unique structure makes it both challenging and rewarding to parse. I hope we see more translated rereleases of this author’s work!

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

A massive rediscovery, or, more accurately, an important & long overdue introduction to English-speaking readers. Kate Brigg's translation of this 1953 debut novel marks Bessette's first appearance in the language, & it's the kind of belated arrival that makes one feel a sense of absence in retrospect, of unnecessary & inexplicable deprivation.

Because why did it take so long? Admired by Duras, Beauvoir, Saurette, & Aury, championed for publication by Queneau, Bessette pioneered what she called the roman poétique ("poetic novel"), & was immediately hailed by French critics & the literary establishment. She even developed a small but devoted cult readership. And yet, like so many women writers especially, over time she simply vanished into even French literary history (her biography, unfortunately, is marked by disillusionment & finally mental illness & impoverishment).

Here she distills narrative into crystalline ice-chips of dialogue & just enough clipped narration to ground us in time, place, & occasionally into the characters' minds & emotions. It took me a bit to find my way into its aphoristic staccato rhythms, but once I did I was completely dazzled to the very last page. Stretches emerge almost like standalone poems before melting into the propulsive force of the titular daughter & her dictatorial mother's codependent lock of wills that finally resemble myth more than the tawdry melodrama this story would be if written more conventionally.

Hoping this is just the first of many Bessette texts to reach the English language, of which I will certainly be reading.

"So many waiting days.
Days of lost time.
Graveyard time.
So many days when chimeras are chimeras.
When life is just life.
Then, on one day amid all the others, they all burst into flame."

[el · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Beckett, Freud, and Duras had a freaky little time together this would be the outcome .

[makayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh. my. god.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

One great thing about Fitzcarraldo’s classics range is that they are resurrecting important novels that are either out of print or were once popular in their time but faded away. Hélène Bessette’s 1953 debut Lili is Crying (Lili Pleure) is the latter.

Bessette’s story is an interesting one: after a bad marriage Hélèlne met OULIPO founder Raymond Queneau, who edited all her 13 novels and she was gaining popularity in literary circles with authors name dropping her- when Queneau died in 1973, her publisher Gallimard dropped her and stopped publishing her books. Bessette faded from obscurity, taking on small jobs but eventually dying in poverty and poor mental health in 2000.

Lili is crying is a novel structured like a poem - think of the odyssey or the way the look of Ali Smith’s novels. The title character is a single woman trying to find a husband but finds it difficult due to her domineering mother.

Eventually she does find one but the mother needs take over, which cause Lili to make the right decisions - trust me this an unpredictable novel - it will NOT go the way you think!

Other than the mother/daughter relationship. Lili is crying explores age, boundaries, gender psyche and the camaraderie between women. At times bleakly funny, sometimes little curveballs are thrown and you’ll get the story from different perspectives.

I had a ton of fun reading Lili is Crying and I will strongly recommend it if you are fond of novels that play with form. Considering this was written in 1953 , it’s way ahead of its time.

[Clara Martin]

One of my favorite themes in literature are mother-daughter relationships which are: "- Hell damnation, cruelty, lies, deceit, betrayal, tears, severances, assassinations, calumny, perfidy, misery and death." So naturally I loved this.

[eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

such an interesting style of writing! a very poetic narrative and not much like i have seen before. it does remind me of the waves by virginia woolf - it is often hard to tell who is speaking, and whether they are voicing things aloud or within their head. it was also confusing as to the age of both the mother and daughter at different points along the book, but i think perhaps that was the point...

had some funny moments but ultimately such a sad book! honestly i feel the worst for lili's husband (whom is never named lol take that men!!!), poor guy could never catch a break even after being in a literal concentration camp...

not to mention this was my first fitzcaraldo! what beautiful novels. also really enjoyed the translators' note at the end, it should've been longer!!

[Eli G · Rating 4 out of 5]

immediately taken in by her style, it’s so abstract yet precise and has a gorgeous intensity. It feels hot, close, and overbearing

[Matteo Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

Credo sia la prima volta che mi trovo a dare come voto un 3.75, però è necessario che io dia proprio questa valutazione: non sono riuscito infatti ad apprezzare pienamente Lili di Hélène Bessette, un testo non tanto originale per la trama, ma per come essa viene resa, o, più esattamente, per lo stile della Bessette. Ciò, a ben guardare, rappresenta il vero e proprio aspetto sul quale tutto il libro si poggia, a mio avviso; e, allo stesso tempo, un enorme rischio. Ed è proprio da ciò che deriva il voto che ho dato, perché, alla lunga, ho trovato un po' pesante lo stile dell'autrice, per quanto io ne riconosca - e abbia continuato a riconoscerne sino alla fine, nel corso della lettura - l'originalità.
Chissà com'è la Bessette in testi più brevi (nei quali forse potrei apprezzarla di più)...

[liliana henriques · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish wish wish more of her writing was translated because reading this felt like swimming in freshwater. Helps that the book is all about me (lili who cries).

[juanalikes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hélène Bessette nos da una experiencia única. Lili is Crying es la primera novela poética que leo en mi vida y no puedo decir otra cosa que estoy asombrada. Es un estudio meticuloso de lo que se espera del ser humano, de lo “natural” y de nuestra lucha constante por escapar y tener control de aquello que socialmente nos restringe.

El tono y la forma del libro son espectaculares: como lector, la experiencia se transforma en cada página. A modo de advertencia, Bessette juega con un lenguaje único desde la voz narrativa que, incluso cuando anticipa lo que ocurrirá, lo hace de una manera que sigue siendo cautivadora.

El vínculo madre-hija, el amor como fuerza y como enemigo, la atracción y el deseo, la amistad, es brutal.

No podría recomendarlo más.

[Martin Koerner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this. If you love Marguerite Duras, you’ll love this too. Great, ironical authorial voice. Funny but sad.

[Sophia Eck]

Lili is Crying as a title already reveals somewhat of a summary of the contents to expect in the novel you are to subsequently read, and it doesn’t fulfill a narrative quota much larger than that. Experimental in form, almost script-like but without any stage direction or punctuation, the lack of structure is at the beginning charming, but by the end somewhat unfulfilling in terms of narrative cohesiveness. The story focuses primarily upon an extremely co-dependent mother-daughter relationship between Lili and her mother, one of tumultuous and insecure circumstances, and despite its decently entertaining spectacle, the combination of the sparse structure and the stubborn and sudden deposement and then reinstatement of their relationships norms all conclusively felt like a lilypad sitting atop a grander pool of nuance to be explored.

[Francescajemm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This! Book! Is! Extraordinary.

In the UChicago book store over the summer, I went looking for something I had never heard of before. I had no expectations or requirements going in - I just wanted to leave with something that caught my attention for no other reason than *it caught my attention.* it’s been sitting on my nightstand these last few months, biding its time, waiting for the right moment. That moment appeared this weekend when the novel thrust itself into my hands and stayed there until I read it all. And then read it all the way through a second time. I cannot recommend it enough if you are into mind-blowing language, cutting emotional truths, and a rigorous examination of all the ways we have of hurting one another.

[kari trail · Rating 3 out of 5]

on what axis, or mistake, did the big wheel of your life turn, and at what point do you know it’s spinning the wrong direction? (and who spins it, you or your mother!!!)

very interesting book, liked how unique the format was, made you nod your head and say yeah that would make me cry too. wrapped up in the mundane perhaps a little too much, found myself a bit tired of the circular plot at the end ! but otherwise: nice and different

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this surprisingly delightful considering how terrible the characters were. I liked the writing and formatting, and I liked the ambiguity of what was said out loud vs internal monologue. I didn’t expect to find humor this book, but the writing made me smile multiple times as I made my way through it.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down the most creative, poetic book I have come across. I found this book to be emotionally intense, immersive, and profoundly unique thanks to such an unusual, visual, auditory, and sparse writing style. Bessette’s prose really resonated with me and her themes of a difficult mother-daughter relationship, love, and friendship were all perfection. I simply loved this book.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

gorgeous! best book i’ve read in a while

[苗苗 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting writing. I love reading about mother daughter relationships.

[Alica Plulikova · Rating 5 out of 5]

stunning and gorgeous. i’ve never read anything like it.

[anna_frcska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn Lili IS always crying.

[Gisele Parnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Middling womanhood. The desperate, the fading, the clutches of desire. Depressing! But ultimately important for me to read. The dialogue is obscenely clever and bulges with the confusion of desires into which this book pulls us! It was poetic and carefully political. Perfect read to dig at the edges of your summer romance list.

[Dagmar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel feels less like a rediscovery than a long-overdue arrival. First published in 1953 and only now available in English through Kate Briggs’s luminous translation, it introduces Bessette as a strikingly original voice—one whose absence from the English-speaking canon suddenly feels both inexplicable and unjust. Admired by figures such as Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir and championed by Raymond Queneau, Bessette pioneered what she called the roman poétique, a form that distills narrative into shards of dialogue and sharply clipped narration. The result is a text that reads in pulses and flashes, demanding patience at first but ultimately proving dazzling.

The style is unmistakably poetic and often disorienting. Voices blur into one another; it is frequently unclear who is speaking, or whether thoughts are spoken aloud or merely internal—an effect that recalls The Waves by Virginia Woolf. Time, too, feels unstable: the ages of the mother and daughter shift and blur, which can be confusing but seems deliberate, reinforcing the mythic, almost timeless quality of their relationship. What might have been tawdry melodrama in more conventional hands becomes something colder and stranger here—a locked, codependent struggle of wills that gathers a relentless, propulsive force.

Despite moments of sharp, even dark humor, the book is ultimately devastating. Its sadness accumulates quietly, with particular poignancy reserved for Lili’s unnamed husband—an almost absurdly tragic figure who survives a concentration camp only to find no reprieve afterward. By the final pages, the novel leaves the reader both shaken and awed. One can only hope this translation marks the beginning of a wider revival of Bessette’s work in English, because this brief, brilliant novel makes a powerful case for her enduring importance.

[Medeea Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bad girl
Bit of nothing girl
Whore.
Street-walker.
Girl turned out badly.
Girl gone crazy.
Over a boy.
Stupid girl.
And what about your mother?
Your mother Charlotte?

Well, safe to say I understood why Lily is crying and why Marguerite Duras was Bessette's fan.

Reading it felt like being pulled into a play where the air is thick with fate. At times, I thought of Euripides, how the voices circle, how grief and humour coexist without ever resolving. The book carried me into a fever dream, but one sharpened rather than blurred, where every line seemed to echo louder than the last. I didn’t move through the story so much as it moved through me. By the end, I was left with that rare sensation of having witnessed something raw and alive, something closer to theatre than to fiction.

And at its core, it shows with brutal clarity the performance of a mother who devours the air around her. If you’ve ever wanted to understand what it feels like to live under the shadow of a narcissistic mother, this is it.

[Kyle Bonney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads kind of like the Odyssey and I love a book where everyone’s always yelling / shouting / crying.

———

May you each take your share.
No, not two portions all for yourself.
You're not starving.
No need to behave like greedy pigs.
That's the way, be polite. Show some manners. Be generous with your smiles, your little attentions.
As for me, says the mother Charlotte, I have now finally finished ringing this lunch bell.


Marthe is no fool.
- Hold onto your happiness, she says. Go after your happiness and fetch it back.
Me, in my life: I am for happiness.
For this kind of happiness.
And if it eludes me, I'll make others all around me.
Red happinesses to crunch on in the sun like the pomegranates
I put in your basket.


Because I can't stay here all alone! Lili shouts.
I can't beaaaaaarrrr solitude.
I can't help it.
I get frightened when I'm all alone.
I'm frightened. I ' M F R I G H T E N E D
of everything, of nothing: the shadows, the creaking wood-work, the squeaks, the silences.
I am sick with fear.

[lia · Rating 3 out of 5]

title doesn’t lie (lili is crying).
from the intro: “not immersive, but rapidly submerges the reader” — and you do fall into and out of it very quickly. It doesn’t help that it’s all built on layers of repeated images. Nothing changes, until everything does, and the text undoes itself, scattering across the page — and then ties up neatly again at the end, recreating itself. You could write a nice little essay about form/structure mirroring plot and midcentury post-war fallout. Felt like Annie Ernaux The Years’ inverted cousin: though maybe just unorthodox, french and leaning towards the philosophical. Certainly a poetic novel/melodrama/tragedy and would be an interesting play (but would be hard to get right). It didn’t quite do it for me - not enough substance, and though her writing is distinct and eccentric it’s not exactly beautiful. But 1953!!!

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand what Bessette is going for with all the enjambment and the rhythm the words hold, but it was never really one my brain could fully catch onto. Maybe my inability to slip into the book is because it's about a toxic mother-child relationship and I started reading this on the worst trip I've ever taken with my mother in the French countryside. Too close to home.

Very Madam Bovary meets Grey Gardens if that makes any sense at all. My favourite quote feels almost detached from the pastoral tone of the story but I still loved this little excerpt regardless:

"If.
If faced with the future.
The future will always be reimagined,
rebuilt
reconstructed,
redone,
redrafted,
recalculated,
reprojected, restarted, re-elaborated, redreamt."