A tender novel from the point of view of the son whose mother, 20 years earlier, was murdered by his father when he was just a baby.

Pierre has moved into the family home in Normandy with his girlfriend. While awaiting for a potential buyer to come forward, they settle into the home as if it is theirs. Pierre loves living on the coast, in this seaside province ruled by idleness and the tides.

From this refuge, he almost manages to forget the gash deep down in his heart. Yet a storm is approaching. His father Henri has returned and memories and names come rushing back to the surface. Sophie, his mother, who died when he was a child; Suzanne and Théodore, the grandparents who raised him, and Vincent, his uncle and his cousin Esther: all the people who bring him back to thoughts of the terrible tragedy. In Victoria’s arms, Pierre onces again tries to make light triumph over darkness. So that the absence can at least quieten.

And knowing what his father did to his mother, how can Pierre cope with the idea of soon becoming a father himself?

At once lively and tender, Tim Dup’s debut novel explores the question of intra-familial violence with nuance.

Tim Dup, born in 1994, is a singer-songwriter. Je suis fait de leur absence is his first novel.