This novel, acclaimed since the beginning of 2025, captivates readers by a story as poignant as memorable

Some family stories are transmitted without ever being told. Therefore, It deserved to be written.

As soon as it was released in February 2025. Consequently, My real name is ElisabethAdèle Yon’s first novel, was able to captivate Over 70,000 readers and win several prestigious prices such as The New Obs literary prize, the France Télévisions Essay Prize and the Grand Prix of readers Elle. But what really makes the strength of this bookthis is its rare mixture intimacy and family investigation. Without ever falling into pathos. Nevertheless, Adèle takes us to meet a forgotten womanof a heavy family story of unsaidall told with this accuracy and this sensitivity that grabs you from the first pages.

A family story long put in silence – This novel, acclaimed since beginning

In that romanwe dive into history d’Elizabeth. Furthermore, alias “Betsy”, Adèle this novel, acclaimed since beginning Yon’s great-grandmother, born in 1916. A woman who finished locked in a psychiatric hospitalbecause her husband. Moreover, her father decided that it was the best solution … However, for them, anyway. Meanwhile, In the family. However, Betsy, It was a bit of the lady that we avoided evoking – a slightly creepy ghost, the “crazy” whose name was barely whispered. Nevertheless, But if we expected a simple portrait of a sick woman, we would be mistaken. THE roman reveals a much more complicated life. marked by Unwanted pregnanciesof the Severe judgmentsand above all an era when psychiatry sometimes was used to lock up what you did not want to see than healing.

What really launches the investigation is the discovery of a Old identity photo in deceased grand-uncle affairs. This very simple image suddenly arises this grandmother that we had dropped into oblivion. This book. It is this novel, acclaimed since beginning therefore a trip to the meanders of a Bourgeois and Catholic family where, as Adèle says it itself, “nothing is never really written black on white”-and where the silences sometimes tell more than words. (In short, a real part of family cluedo, but without easy clues.)

An intimate quest. a real family investigation

What we discover in filigree in this roman, It is ADAGE A has not just written a book – She led downright an investigation worthy of a family thriller. By searching the affairs of the great-uncle. peeling the archives, by questioning his loved ones (and sometimes putting her feet in the dish, must be said), she tried to understand what everyone vaguely knew … without ever wanting to admit it. Because yes. everyone knew the label stuck on Betsy — “schizophrenic” – But no one had taken the trouble to dig behind this novel, acclaimed since beginning the words. Not very surprising, in a family where secrets are very warm between embroidered tablecloths and dusty photo albums.

Gradually, Adèle So has rebuilt the puzzle. And what she discovered was a not so distant time when a woman could be locked up just because she was disturbing a little too much – because she did not obey. that she did not fold the role that we wanted to make her play (spoiler: silent wife and mother in loop). This romanit is as much the portrait of a woman as the reflection of a system which did not. leave a lot of space with dissonant voices.

And as if that were not enough. this Immersed in its family history also nourished his Doctoral thesis in art, supported in December 2024. This mixture between personal life, archives, and collective memory gives a dense, sincere, and frankly this novel, acclaimed since beginning necessary text. Because in true. who does not have a too heavy secret in his family, a story never told or a muffled voice? This roman Just make you want to lift the carpet. (Even if we know very well that it will shake the dust a little.)

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