Tragedy in Morocco Sparks Poignant Novel on Body Image and Loss

In this novel, JoÈve Dupuis talks about this tragedy that deeply marked her. "She died on a Friday the 13th at 1 p.m. I wrote this book because I was going through something extremely difficult, which was like a trauma. I was very close to Florence when she was little. I started writing it when I was grieving myself, because I wasn’t doing well. I fell into depression," she confides to the Journal de Québec.

The writer continues: "It’s a medical error, but it’s not an accident, in the sense that you don’t go get liposuction in secret, when everyone thinks you’re doing well and you’re comfortable in your body. Something could have been done before." JoÈve Dupuis began by writing to release the pain she was feeling. "I made a fiction with everything I was going through. It took me two years. I would stop, I would cry too much. In the meantime, I wrote a youth series, because I needed to do myself some good."

The novel tells the story of Lola, who reconnects with a teenage love and experiences upheavals in her family life. She describes with particular emotion the grief of people who, like her, have lost a loved one, even if the latter was not part of their immediate family. "I needed to put my emotions on paper. I’ve always done it, but in other contexts. I lived my grief by throwing myself into it. It was my support tool."

JoÈve Dupuis addresses several themes in her novel: body image, social pressure, social media, eating disorders, etc. The novelist considers it important to explain the meaning of the expression "being comfortable in one’s skin." "Florence was not comfortable in her body. She tried diets, training. But the acceptance of her physical envelope, that goes through something else. It’s still very taboo not to be comfortable in one’s body," she explains. And to add: "It can open the door to several discussions, on several subjects..."