La petite menteuse by Pascale Robert-Diard (review)

Reviewed by: La petite menteuse by Pascale Robert-Diard Yan Zhao Robert-Diard, Pascale. La petite menteuse. L’Iconoclaste, 2022. ISBN 978-2-37880-299-8. Pp. 216. Alice Keridreux, established lawyer in a small town, is presented one day with a seemingly banal case. Lisa Chavret accuses Marco Lange of sexually assaulting her when he was a plasterer working in her family house and when she was still a minor. As a result, the court sentences Marco to ten years in prison, and four months before the second trial resulted from the defendant’s appeal, Lisa suddenly decides to change her lawyer to Alice simply because “[elle voudrait] être défendue par une femme” (17). It turns out, just as the title suggests, Lisa lied about the sexual assault. Five years ago, when Lisa was still in secondary school, she was at first proud of owning fully developed breasts, which attracted attention from the boys. Yet she quickly became known as “la petite salope du collège”. Desperate to save her reputation and to save face in front of her beloved teachers and friends, Lisa had no choice but to present herself as a victim of sexual assault to regain their sympathy and compassion. The adults around Lisa eagerly believed her story, reported the incident to the police and identified possible criminals for her. Stuck in a vicious cycle and tortured by the thought of having sent an innocent man to prison, Lisa finally revealed the truth to the female lawyer, the real protagonist of the novel, in hope that Alice would better understand her situation and thus defend her properly in court. Pascale Robert-Diard, having covered jury trials for Le Monde for almost twenty years, writes in a style that is descriptive, concise, and realist. Despite being a debut novel, Robert-Diard handles a sensitive and complicated topic with elegance and delicacy. By introducing readers into the perspective of the lawyer, who is obliged to defend Lisa and to present “la petite menteuse” as relatable and likeable, the author challenges her readers to get out of their ideological passivity and stay with the discomfort. Does the fact that Lisa was indeed sexually abused by the boys at her school justify her false accusation of an innocent, underclass man? Why did her teachers and parents willingly speak for her, or even speak over her? Lisa’s falsified report is less about her lies than about what was expected out of her by her surroundings. The novel, instead of merely confirming and legitimizing lessons from the MeToo Movement, is a disruptive force that is also nuanced enough to resist reductive readings—any reader who leaves the novel thinking Robert-Diard is trying to delegitimize “la parole des femmes” doesn’t do justice to the book. La petite menteuse is an engaging and thought-provoking read that invites us to reflect on judicial truth, adolescent girlhood, and discourse complexity around sexual violence. [End Page 249] Yan Zhao Harvard University (MA) Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French