In ‘La Tournée’, published by Éditions L’Iconoclaste, Maxime Rossi lends his voice as a nurse and volunteer firefighter to a keen portrait of rural France: the daily life of touring, the loneliness of the elderly, end-of-life dilemmas and concerns for youth. Exclusive interview: the author says he has written a novel, which, for the reader, generates a concentration of information on what threatens our humanity.
“It’s a novel, I insist on that,” repeats Maxime Rossi, who draws from his memories as one looks for scraps in an old printer’s cabinet with its string of narrow drawers… In these I have the memory of such a person… in another, the memory of someone I met at another time. » From these fragments composite characters are born: “I bring together a little piece of one, a little piece of the other… so that they have a universal dimension. » The process allows the author to transform professional experiences into romantic, universal figures, without erasing the truth of the situations.
Caring, on a daily basis: gestures and presence
Maxime Rossi recounts the tour as an inventory of tiny and essential gestures: dressing, prescribing, but also “taking out the trash, feeding the dog, fetching leeks from the garden, reading.” These acts outline a profession that is “very honest, very simple, very humble” and reveal the social function of the nurse: “he often becomes the only visitor of the day, almost a member of the family. “For him, writing is the natural continuation of work: “I like writing because I often write after working and because people have told me stories. » The work ‘The Tour’ calls out: “These are situations about what is most profound, which is happening in our society and which is of the order of this loss of humanity†. It compares medical desert, abandonment of elders and psychological suffering: alcoholism, psychiatric disorders, loneliness.
« Our elders are treated like the marginalized«Â
“I have a theory about our elders,” confides Maxime Rossi, “and that is that older people in the countryside today are marginalized, that is to say, they are completely left behind by progress. They are totally ineffective, they are told all the time that in a capitalist society, performance, they are of no use, they cost everyone money, and in fact, they interest no one. So, they will not have the same chances as others in this world of health. For example, in my work, I have a couple of patients. Every day I go to see them, and I find them watching TV. On it, it says: ‘connection problem’, and every day, I give them the TV because simply, the zapette is not suitable, and no one is interested. They don’t interest anyone. So I’m going to be interested in them, they want to watch TV, I’m going to help them do it, so much so that they say to me, hey, it’s the TV repairman who’s coming.”
The question of the end of life, without simplification
Also, a father wanting to be helped to die haunts the day… narration. On euthanasia, Maxime Rossi accepts the complexity: he “understands the right to die” but “does not feel capable of making this gesture”. He recognizes that this dilemma is common among caregivers: “It’s an inner conflict that many caregivers experience today.” Rather than imposing an answer, the novel places the reader in the moral angle of an irreducible decision.
“I am fundamentally for assisted dying, so that people can choose. Now, I don’t want us to choose for them, and then, there is something that seems strange to me: how can we assign such a mission to the hospital, when it is completely bloodless, since Covid. It’s a world that is totally ravaged. »
Concerns for youth: Ritalin, screens and early wear
In a second book to be published, of which he draws the beginnings, Maxime Rossi confides his concern for the rising generation: “I have children, they are 14, 16 and 18 years old… we are in the process of producing a generation that we are in the process of ruining. » He points to concrete phenomena: massive use of psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin, the health and physical effects linked to screens such as damaged eyesight, hearing loss linked to in-ear headphones, and increased medicalization of young people, in particular antidepressants because Covid, the confinements did them a lot of harm. A second book focused on “the anger of young people”.
Literature and care, when the two professions feed each other
A former bookseller, Maxime Rossi says he finds in literature a material that care does not offer: “We tell them – these meetings – in roundabout ways… we talk about them – the inhabitants of small rural towns – all the same. ” Reciprocally, the experience of care fuels his writing: “there is a way of telling others… I draw inspiration from many people that I know very well” The result is a sober, chiseled language, which does justice to the lives we pass through.
Why this book concerns us all
The book ‘La Tournée’ does not just move; it makes diagnoses on the state of the social bond. Maxime Rossi confides bluntly: “we take care to forget ourselves a little… to heal an incurable wound within ourselves. »The novel is both an intimate chronicle and a discreet manifesto: it invites attention and action, without didacticism. The author concludes: “I met Miguel Benasayag, who was a psychoanalyst and a philosopher, columnist on France Culture. He had lived under the dictatorship of the generals in Argentina, had been imprisoned and subjected to torture. He wrote a magnificent book ‘Fragility’ published by La Découverte, and how we could use it as a means of entering into communication with the fragility of others to better support them, to better welcome them. It is François Cheng who often says: To become aware of happiness, one must have experienced great suffering. I think that our suffering and our own vulnerability are a way of welcoming the vulnerability of others, of taking care of it, of respecting it.”
Practical information
‘The Tour’ by Maxime Rossi. Novel. Published by L’Iconoclaste. The author will be present during the Lire sur la Sorgues Literary Festival in L’Isle‒sur‒la‒Sorgue. The Literary Festival will take place from May 13 to 16. The whole program here. Maxime Rossi will meet his audience Thursday May 14 at 5 p.m. at the 4rtgallery. Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.
Mireille Hurlin
