Anna Gavalda: Running out of Steam?

One of the most delightful books I've read in the last 10 years or so is Anna Gavalda's Hunting and Gathering, Ensemble, C'est tout in the French original.  As recently as last moth, I was delighted that one of my library reading groups--nearly all over 50, and Anglophone--almost unanimously found the story set in present day Paris amusing, encouraging and, yes, at moments profound.

In the novel Camille (a near-anorexic young painter), Franck (a chef with a grandmother he loves but can't see very often,) Philo (a rich, stuttering "failure" whose family has charged with squatting in an apartment they think they ought to inherit, and Franck's grandmother form an unlikely ménage à quatre.  There are many ups and downs, but in the end together the four of them create something very fine.  (If you want  to know what, run find the book at Amazon.com or in your library.)

So when I received Gavalda's latest Billie I looked forward to having a few nights of uninterrupted reading to enjoy it.  But what a disappointment!  The story is told by Billie, a young woman from la France profonde (think Dellarobia in Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior) who finds herself pleading with the gods  as she and her buddy Franck lie trapped at the bottom of a crevasse in a French national park.  Seems she and Franck were outcasts at their secondary school.  Their one moment of glory came they performed a scene from a famous short story by Alfred de Musset for a French class.  In it Billie plays Camille (yes, hard as it to believe) and Franck, Perdican who have their hearts broken. The experience was illuminating, casting shadows 10 years later.

There should be a sub-genre called "saved by  a book."  You know, all those Dead Poets Society, Mr. Pip, and The Elegance of the Hedgehog where a book or books make the difference for a poor/misunderstood/ struggling character to find sense in his or her life.  While it's true that books really can make a difference in one's life, reading one of these stories frequently makes me grind my teeth.  The world is more complicated than that, and there are times when the stories seem designed for a specific school market.

That is the case with Billie: I can imagine  teachers all over France putting the book on reading lists even though the language is pretty rough in places.  But what eally annoys me is the way Gavalda recycles elements from her truly excellent earlier book (the characters names, a father who leaves a small inheritance, a girl struggling not to become the preyof rapacioius men).  ended with a marriage and a big party and  new book  ends in a promise of that kind of celebration, even though  Franck really prefers guys.
Hunting and Gathering

So I think that Gavalda has run out of material.  She's begun repeating herself, which is a shame, because with her powers of observation I'm sure she can find other stories to tell.