Like many, I was transfixed by the Gisèle Pelicot trial. She seemed utterly singular, this Frenchwoman in her 60s who adamantly refused to obscure her face or identity as she testified against her husband and the 50 men he had recruited to rape her unconscious body. “Shame must change sides,” she explained. Pelicot became a flashpoint for feminist solidarity, and her memoir, “A Hymn to Life,” received wide and admiring coverage. I had not planned to write about it until I overheard an offhand remark; another critic, who’d given the book an admiring review, confessed privately that there was something about the book that disturbed her. She didn’t trust Pelicot. I had heard the book described only in warm, wan language — a rousing manifesto, a testimony of resilience — the sort of language so effective at inviting admiration and stamping out curiosity. That remark by the critic (and its tone — the note of aggrieved confusion) nagged at me, suggesting that something strange was stirring in these pages. Which is what I found. “A Hymn to Life” is a text designed to make you think deeply about trust, belief and reliability — in a marriage, certainly, but also in the context of your own mind and perceptions. Pelicotwho spent a decade suffering blackouts and memory loss due to being drugged by her husband, reconstitutes her reality, turning over every piece of the past, exploring not just the secrets her husband kept from her, but what she learned to conceal from herself — and what she cannot yet bring herself to know. It is a survivor memoir unlike any I’ve read. Stay in touch: Like this email? Forward it to a friend and help us grow. Loved a story? Hated it? Write us a letter at magazine@nytimes.com. Did a friend forward this to you? Sign up here to get the magazine newsletter.
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