[English review] “The Great Escape” by Valérie Siracus

Written by Valérie Siracus and published in 2016, “The Great Escape” [t/n : Échappée Belle] tells the tale of Laurence's descent into hell when she became addicted to cocaine. Here is the official summary:

Laurence, an active young woman, leaves the family home to move into her own apartment. During a fancy party, she meets Mike, a young sales manager with devastating charm, who immediately seduces her with his joie de vivre and gallantry. She carelessly shares his life made of parties and prestige.

But, day after day, Mike's portrait of modern Prince Charming peels away, revealing a manipulative side, the spectre of a life full of glitter she’d have never imagined. Blinded by her love for him, she lets him lead her down the path of a dangerous cocaine addiction.

It is then for this young woman, an inexorable descent into hell.

When the paths of love and ambition lead you down the path of dependency, being strong sometimes means knowing how to ask for help...

I would have so many negative things to say, especially about the representation of women and love, sexuality... I'll spare you. I decided to approach this review only in relation to lokalisation because that's above all why I chose to read this novel: it's about Guadeloupe.

A loaded writing style

The summary is like the novel. The paper edition is 395 pages long (large format, no chapters) but could have been a hundred pages shorter by removing the repetitions, the accumulations of adjectives, adverbs and the rare dialogues in direct speech that had long sentences that no one would say in one go in real life and therefore all the more difficult to read like this sentence I just wrote. The novel being in the first person singular gave me the impression that Laurence was excessive about everything as she kept on describing with precision the same things that she considers exceptional even after the 4th time. In each villa, "everything is beautiful, really beautiful"; "everything is big, really big". Every landscape is "breathtaking, magnificent, splendid." Every dish is "delicious, succulent". And sometimes these adjectives are accompanied by the adverbs "totally", "extremely"... The barometer made in Lau* is hard to read. What is the difference between a delicious and an extremely delicious dish? What is the difference between a magnificent view and a breathtaking view?

And every description is like that from the beginning to the end of the novel... As every local dish that Laurence eats in a restaurant give the excuse to mention the name of a city (Laurence eats in restaurants 98% of the time), I had the impression to read the checked list of a tourist who marvels at everything. Through Laurence's eyes, the beauty of Guadeloupe comes down to the (expensive) dishes, the local homemade juices (mango/papaya/banana being her favourite and always prepared by her mother) and the sea-related landscapes/activities. It's all the more frustrating to see this reductive image of the island when Laurence travels to Anguilla and Puerto Rico where she goes for a walk in the nature and is interested in historical buildings.

Colorism in plain sight

Over the top descriptions can be overlooked when it comes to dishes and landscapes, but they can’t be when it comes to characters. What is the difference between being professional and very professional? What is the difference between being feminine and ultra-feminine?

Laurence passes judgment on every character. Either it is specified that they are beautiful, have "a dream body", or their physical appearance isn’t mentioned at all. On one hand, I’m fine with limited physical descriptions to let the reader freely imagine how the character looks like. On the other hand, yes, I do have a problem with the use of skin color to determine the beauty of the characters. I gave Laurence the benefit of the doubt about her colorist statements. One character after the other, the absence of the typical black physical features (hair texture, thick lips, etc.) was already a red flag until she described a Puerto Rican man as "real Puerto Rican" because he’s light-skinned. What does that even mean? Dark-skinned Puerto Rican people are therefore not real Puerto Ricans? Then how would you describe a “real Guadeloupean” person?

Laurence is only surrounded by people with an "ideal" physique whose first characteristic is fair or white skin. Even the book cover reflects this vision. It was my mistake to assume that black was the characters’ default color because the story takes place in Guadeloupe. Even the TV series “La Baie des Flamboyants had avoided the cliché of associating wealth only with light-skinned characters.

The invisibilized Guadeloupe

The only positive thing I can say about “The Great Escape” is the subject itself. Instead of writing about the unemployed youth living in an unhealthy neighbourhood cliché, the drug use theme is addressed here in a middle-class context. This middle class whose children graduated from college and earn a salary good enough for them to live a decent life. This middle class which faces the same issues as the working class.

By the way, the author struggled to characterize Laurence’s middle class upbringing because Laurence comes off as superficial as the girls she loves to criticize. Laurence is indifferent about her ex's blue Jaguar, but she is ecstatic about a SUV or a Porsche. She eats conch (shell) and lobster as if it were basic food. She spends her time in restaurants and trendy bars. She goes on a shopping spree on a regular basis. She barely does grocery shopping, so she has no idea of how much food cost when you live in Guadeloupe. Yet she doesn't seem to be at the level of wealth of someone who has the luxury of not having a food budget. The most telling example of this discrepancy in Laurence's attitude for me is when she sings the praises of Carlita, the wife of a wealthy Puerto Rican man, who's organising a charity event. Suddenly, Laurence feels the urge to get involved in this kind of action too, but at no point is it said concretely whether it would be in favour of Guadeloupeans. However, her father, “a man of the law” as she repeats every time, raised her up by giving her knowledge of the social map of Guadeloupe. She herself, being a professional in town planning, has a job that should give her a deep understanding of the political and economic challenges in this field. However, Guadeloupe’s issues are mentioned only once in 395 pages. Laurence’s older brother came to spend a few days of vacation in Guadeloupe. There’s a brief discussion between them and what they say is something cliché that you could hear in any report broadcast in news shows like “60 minutes”. I'm not saying that Laurence should have spent her time crying over the bad economic state of Guadeloupe. I'm just saying that it still creates an imbalance when she regularly praises the natural beauty of Guadeloupe without ever mentioning the people and their struggle, even though she works in a strategic sector of the island's development. Her profession means she is confronted with this social reality she seems disconnected from all the time.

Anyway, you get my point. I did not subscribe to this monochoronic representation of Guadeloupe in every sense of the word. The people, the places, the lifestyle... Not that I think it's impossible to tell a story about the wealthy youth of Guadeloupe. I'm just saying that I wasn't convinced by the execution because the characters were one-dimensional and sometimes plain unrealistic. Laurence - minus the indolence - reminded me too much of Anastasia Steel aka Ana from 50 Shades of Grey. Devaluing herself by listing her qualities or her physical assets, slutshaming, judging any woman who can be her equal (her colleague Sonia whose actions reflect nothing but sincere friendship is her favourite punching bag like Kate is for Ana), having dramatic reactions for nothing (especially when it's Sonia). Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that Laurence is a change from the eternal Potomitan Caribbean woman who sacrifices herself for her family but whose well-being is never discussed. Certainly, I found this character egocentric from beginning to end and I didn't see how she had gained in maturity by the end of the story (#unpopularopinion, I'm sure), but I salute the will to create a vulnerable female character whose existence is not dedicated to the well-being of others. Laurence is a woman in search of her own happiness.

Tasteless Reality TV

When I finished the novel, I felt like I was watching a reality TV show. Everything was scripted, coordinated to create idyllic camera shots. Characters’ benevolence seems fake. The discussions are empty. Everything revolves around just one character, even other characters’ struggles only serve the purpose to show how exceptional, compassionate the heroine is (spoiler alert: she is not). The characters invent hectic lives for themselves but show us a boring everyday life. The characters with ordinary problems are deemed boring and left aside. Love only happens by love at first sight. The slightest problem generates a dramatic reaction without going through intermediate actions (Laurence does not know the "block contact" function on her phone for example). The reality TV confessional where the person justifies their actions or explains a situation is replaced here by the voice over in italics (for lack of an inner goddess). Laurence’s family only appears to create emotional moments but is absent from her daily life. Her relationship with her brother and sister are a non-existent, distance is no excuse). Where for a reality TV, there is a montage by keeping only the "interesting" moments of the day because life can’t be exciting 24 hours a day, here there are almost no temporal ellipses. We get to follow Laurence in her routine of repetitive filler scenes just like the filler scenes reality TV repeats from one episode to the other on the same season.

Now, I guess you're wondering whether you’d like this novel or not. I would say that if you liked, or are at least neutral about, “Twilight”, “50 Shades of Grey” or “After” then “The Great Escape” should appeal to you. If you're Team #whysoproblematic when you read these novels, you'll probably feel the same way about “The Great Escape”.

* Laurence gets into the habit of reheating pre-baked croissants in the oven every morning, which she proudly calls "made in Lau" croissants. What makes the gesture interesting is that she makes a point of doing it every morning for her colleagues, but what does she do to these pre-baked croissants to make them "made in Lau"? Unless she makes the croissant dough... but she said she could barely cook to the point where her mother gives her an easy recipe book. But at the same time she can make blood sausage in two hours. #ijustdontgetit

T/n : this review was first published on myinsaeng.com on July 28th 2017. You can read the French original version here.