“Karl Lagerfeld had given a party that had turned to sadomasochistic delirium …” – L’Express

Summer 1978, on the Costa Brava. Eric Neuhoff is 22 years old. One of his best friends, Olivier, has to get married in a few weeks. To celebrate, the two friends decide to go to the Rachdingue, the magical local nightclub. They will never appear before the physio. Olivier loses control of his car – his bachelor party will bear his name. For the survivor, Eric, it is the beginning of a long way of the cross: he borders on amputation and spends twelve months in the hospital, between operations and rehabilitation …

Neuhoff had never taken the time to return to this accident, however founder in his life as a man – now 68, he still suffers physically, although he does not complain. Composed in the form of flashes, he finds the atmosphere of the year 1978 as that of the clinics where he passes. Mixing spleen and humor, as always with Neuhoff, Penthotal is certainly one of his best books, maybe even his best. He tells us about it in this interview, where we find the legendary spirit of the former chronicler of Mask and pen.

L’Express: Do you know big books or great films on hospitalization?

Eric Neuhoff: There had been The hospital From Alphonse Boudard, a funny book on tuberculosis. The same theme as The Magic Mountainwhich takes place in a Davos sanatorium. Other than that … in the movies, I would say Flight over a cuckoo nestbut it is a psychiatric hospital. There are still nurses. I admit that when I saw the film when it was released in 1975, I found Louise Fletcher very sexy in the role of the wicked – like Cruella in The 101 Dalmatiansvery good too. Other works with white blouses, I don’t see … There are Cronin novels on doctors, but I never read them …

Your book is an almost closed door. Wasn’t you afraid to shoot?

Oh no, I didn’t think about it … As I write short, I run little risk. My books are short, as far as possible. I hope I haven’t diluted too much.

Probably because of the Figaro, We see you as a classic writer when your work is more experimental than it seems. The narration of Pentothal is not linear, it is a series of flashes. Wouldn’t you be, basically, an avant-garde author?

I know your theory, which you are the only one to support: you want to tip me in midnight editions!

In Pentothalyou are lying on a hospital bed. We think of Andy Warhol filming for hours a sleeping man!

Thank you for the comparison! I still hope that Pentothal is not as repetitive as the Nicholson manuscript in Shining. There for once it is not a hospital story, but of illness, as March From Fritz Zorn… To answer your previous question, no, I am not an experimental writer. But I leave you this bet on the future.

Joking aside, who wrote like you in the field of French literature of the 20th century, the one who fed you?

I don’t know … in Penthotal The flashes of which you are talking about also serve to translate the state in which I was after my accident, with blurred images, scattered memories that came back to me without my knowing why. I wanted to transcribe an atmosphere. I didn’t think about Burroughs. It is not at my age that I will embark on the cut-up Or I don’t know!

The book gives the impression of great ease: is it natural or does it ask you for work?

I didn’t have to force myself. I found myself over 60 in the state in which I was at 22. After all, when you write, you are stuck at your office like someone in your hospital bed. It is not a normal activity to write. We are forced to get out of the world and start gamber. It’s a sick thing.

What was the 1978 soundtrack for you?

At the time, there were only new pieces. Nothing had more than six months. Radio Nostalgie had not yet been created. The flagship title for me may be Miss You Rolling Stones. With my friends from the time, we hated disco. And when we saw that even the Stones began to do it annoyed us then we found it very good. We were admiring Mick Jagger & Cie.

Were you plus Anglo-Saxon music than French variety?

Yes. There was still France Gall and Julien Clerc, which we listened to a lot – in 1978, Julien Clerc came out My preferencewith words by Jean-Loup Dabadie.

1978 is also the year of the plastic tube Bertrand It hovers for mewhich does not correspond to your state then …

We loved it! I quote it in the book, by the way. We thought that Plastic Bertrand was a real punk, it amused us. Well, a Belgian punk, there was a bit of a contradiction in terms …

And on a literary level, what does 1978 give?

For several weeks, I couldn’t read at all: because of the shock, it was impossible for me to fix my attention on a page, it was as if the lines jumped … The first book I managed to finish was Rue des Boutiques Dark From Modiano, Goncourt Prize that year. I also remember Diane Lanster of Jean-Didier Wolfromm, who had had the interallié, of Yellow of Pascal Jardin, who had marked me … There was also The mail boat by Geneviève Dormann, with this first striking sentence: “One day, the parachute of mom did not open.” And I finally had time to read classics: Beauty of the Lordthat I did not like, The two Etendardsthat I found incredible, and War and peace. Big songs!

No Annie Ernaux to spend time?

Was she already writing?

She had started in 1974 with Empty cabinets.

I didn’t read it at the clinic. But later, in the genre little story, I did not hate The place. It was better than what she did after …

You are not talking about politics in your book. Even at 22 years old you were vaccinated against militant illusions of youth?

I have never done too many illusions, neither in politics nor in other areas. I never joined a party, or even manifested. This is not my thing. I was not a young Giscardian. No politician enthroned me. Pentothal So don’t talk about that, alas, it’s lamentable! I still remember that, while I was lying down, there was the Iranian Revolution. France had welcomed Khomeini in Neauphle-le-Château. We didn’t realize that it was the start of the disaster.

Have your friends too were disengaged?

There were some excited Assas. Some had even left for Lebanon to fight with Christians. But with my comrades it was less the mutuality than the Palladium bus…

Let’s talk a little nightclubs! A Costa Brava club, the Rachdingue, is at the heart of your book. What did he have such magical?

The Rachdingue was an old farm that had been restored and transformed into a nightclub, lost in the land, on a hill, above the vines … The place was magnificent. In France, the boxes were closed things that felt tobacco and sweat. In Rachdingue, the dance floor was located inside but outside we came across a large garden with armchairs and cushions. We drank glasses under the stars. People didn’t come back …

What other boxes have marked you?

The Palladium bus mainly. There was the best music in Paris, very good rock, freights on the scene … oddly, I have never been thrown away at the entrance. There was also the blue hand in Montreuil, in the basement of a supermarket. A gigantic, mind -blowing place. We were drinking beers that cost 5 francs. Sappers were dancing prodigiously well. At dawn, they left by the first metro. It was there that Karl Lagerfeld had given a party that had turned to sadomasochistic delirium. It had contributed to the closure of the box – Montreuil was a communist municipality. Afterwards, there was the palace, which I didn’t like too much, then the showers, where I went a lot. And I do not forget the Elysée-Matignon, where there were the prettiest daughters in Paris…

A word on the Costa Brava: is it a personal or generational myth for you?

It is linked to my family history. I spent part of my youth in Toulouse, and the Costa Brava was a bit of the Toulouse suburbs for the holidays. For Parisians, it was not a very prominent destination. But for the young man I was, it was the stranger. The currency and the ice cream marks were different. The discs were cheaper and the Anglo-Saxon titles were translated into Spanish. We got lost. I remember that of a Donovan disc: I took a long time to understand what it was!

Is that your lost paradise?

I have a very beautiful memory. It may be fantasized or dreamed of … I was a kid, I spent there two and a half months every summer. If we add every summer, it’s been a few years of life. I have known a lot of people who are still my friends there.

David Foenkinos says that it was during a long hospitalization, when he was 16, that he had his vocation as a writer. You have the feeling that this ordeal has not changed you …

It just gave me a conviction: after that, he couldn’t happen to me anymore. This is why I am never depressed or that I have a lot of trouble getting bored. Everything seems to me to take. On the other hand, I am not sure that the pain taught me much … and I had not taken notes in the hospital. I had left aside the manuscript of Using precautionson which I worked before the accident. I hadn’t done anything, except to learn to machine.

What does the current trend in unpacking inspire?

It breaks my feet – and, in my case, I don’t need it! I allowed myself to write on this hospitalization because it was a little extraordinary experience. If I hadn’t had an accident, I would never have told my year 1978.

Your book alternates between melancholy and humor. What types of stories do you touch or make you laugh?

Drieu La Rochelle was not funny, but I really like Secret story. For humor, I would say Blondin, Philip Roth (especially the first) and Bernard Frank in the second -degree columnist side.

Blondin and Frank, are you still rereading them today?

I reread the hussars and the related authors a lot: I find that they hold it very well. I would have liked to have written A mauve taxi From Michel Déon, it is for me one of the most beautiful French novels. I am always dazzled. Adios De Kléber Haedens is one of my classics. And I want to congratulate Marceau for the biggest stylist in the band – you have to reread the amazing Capri Small island Or Creezyhis Goncourt 1969.

After writing this important book for you, do you already have other projects or do you feel a little dry?

When a book is finished, we are not dry, but relieved. I will now write a novel called Cahors in the rain And will happen there in the 1970s. I have not exhausted all my memories of youth. Too bad for you!

Pentothalby Eric Neuhoff. Albin Michel, 212 p., € 19.90.