The Right Cheek

Claire Martin was born in Quebec City in 1914. In 1945, after a career as a broadcaster, first in Quebec and later with Radio-Canada in Montreal, she married the chemist, Rolland Faucher. Her first book, Avec ou sans amour (1958), a collection of short stories, was awarded the PRIX DU CERCLE DU LIVRE DE FRANCE. It was followed by two novels, Doux-amer (1960) and Quand j'aurai payé ton visage (1962). In 1965, the first volume of her autobiography, Dans un gant de fer received the PRIX FRANCE-QUÉBEC and the PRIX DE LA PROVINCE DE QUÉBEC. The second volume, La joue droite (1966), won a GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD 'for fiction'. Her third novel, Les Morts, appeared in 1971. Since 1972, she has lived and worked in France. / In this second volume of her prize-winning autobiography, Claire Martin describes her adolescence and early womanhood in her father's house. In her foreword she wrote 'whenever anyone is strong enough, male enough, rich enough or white enough to persecute the weak he will gladly do so. But people like that always have something ridiculous about them. And the weak look on and laugh.' It was this laughter which enabled Claire and her six brothers and sisters to survive the oppressive brutality of their father. Together, they circumvented his authority, ignored his dictums and mocked his self-delusions, though they still lived in physical fear and economic dependence. The attitudes of the society of the time towards sex and women are bitterly attacked and ridiculed. Behind the self-defensive sarcasm, there is a deep sensitivity. Her need as a child, adolescent and woman to love and be loved cries out throughout the book. Written from the security of a hard-won individuality, 23 years after the marriage of her older sister, Françoise, which ends this book, Claire Martin's autobiography is a shocking indictment of the abuse of power.