A Hymn to Life by Gisele Pelicot

“And yet the feeling persists: love is not dead. I am not dead. I still have faith in people. Once, that was my greatest weakness. Now it is my strength.”

Initially I bought this book out of a need to demonstrate my support for Gisele Pelicot. I wasn’t sure I could read it. But I felt impelled to bear witness to her story.

This is a hard book to read. It’s written with an honest rawness that is, at times, hard to bear. That her apparently loving husband of decades could do to her what he did, is incomprehensible. But even more incomprehensible is the number of other men who felt no compunction in joining him in his abuse of his wife. Men that knew her, who knew her children, who were part of her community.

Gisele Pelicot’s bravery in facing these men in court, and forcing them to accept their guilt, is extraordinary. Even more extraordinary is her belief, after all she has been through, that ‘love is not dead’.

Reviewed by Gaby Meares
Murder on a Monday Reading Group