Each year, L’Express brings together around a lunch the authors of the best-selling novels and essays of the past year. I had the privilege of being on the guest list for the last edition with my co-author, Jérôme Fourquet, in 27th place on the list*, a little behind Marc Levy (n° 25) but ahead of Sylvain Tesson (n° 38) . From the traditional group photo, however, it became obvious to me that I was going to have to put on my hat as a columnist to let readers benefit from this Germanopratin moment, although the action took place on the right bank, in the salons of the Royal Monceau. close to the Arc de Triomphe.
At the L’Express best-seller luncheon, the entry ticket is around 80,000 copies sold. Imagine that the covers of all the books sold in Relay, this sign of train stations and airports which only offers on its shelves the page-turners, recipes for overcoming anxiety or award-winning red-banded novels suddenly come to life. The strange result would be the reunion in the same unit of time and place of personalities as diverse as Hervé Le Tellier and his Anomaly, Prix Goncourt 2021 (No. 1 in the ranking), Camille Kouchner and The Grand Family (No. 4 in sales), the author of suspense novels Michel Bussi (No. 18), but also the influencer Léna Situations (No. 33) or the journalist Catherine Nay (40th place).
The noticeable absence of Eric Zemmour
At the cocktail before lunch, we talk about everything except the two common points between all the participants, namely, in descending order: sales figures and literature. We collectively express some reservations about our presence in the Parisian “golden triangle”, glass of champagne in hand, at a time when war is raging in Ukraine. Of the 40 authors on the list, a dozen are excused. The most noticeable absence is naturally that of Eric Zemmour, yet fifth in the overall sales ranking for France has not said its last word : the now candidate had not followed up, to the great relief of several authors, who had made it known in advance that the presence of the polemicist would bother them. Philippe de Villiers, n° 39, is also absent, but the authors engaged on the left, like Mona Chollet (n° 16) or Barbara Stiegler (n° 35), also shun worldliness. My table, which is also that of the authors Albin Michel (Jean-Christophe Grangé, Bernard Werber, Natacha Calestrémé…), weighs, after discreet verification on Google, several tens of millions of copies sold cumulatively, which by effect comparison brings me back to my status as a dwarf bestselling author. We discuss dietetics, gluten and intermittent fasting with Bernard Werber: he is one of those who no longer really count the number of times they have been invited.
As in a choral novel or a good series, a subplot unfolds in the background: because while Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt and Amélie Nothomb down the glasses and laugh noisily, the great people of culture and publishing , men in gray suits and elegant women scattered around the tables, are obsessed with Vincent Bolloré’s takeover of the Hachette Livre group. Despite protests in principle, the authors seem less concerned by these great politico-economic maneuvers: do they even know which billionaire owns the group that publishes them?
– (c) THE EXPRESS
Going to the toilets, I push through a small group made up of Anne Berest (n° 20), Clara Dupont-Monod (n° 9), Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (n° 2) and a few others, gathered like cool kids who would have organized a counter-evening in the kitchen. At the time of parting, we find ourselves imagining a scenario in which all this little world would be blocked in the living room of the Royal Monceau because of a cataclysm or a coup d’etat. A bit like in Squid Game, after a few episodes the names of the authors would have been replaced by their numbers in the classification: Hervé Le Tellier, n° 1; Delphine de Vigan, No. 8; Aurélie Valognes, n° 36. The distinctions between literary genres would be overcome, a coach in managing emotions, a nice quadra from popular literature, an alcoholic and depressive novelist and a great lady of political journalism would find themselves in the same team. Only the issue of the group’s survival would remain, somewhat on the model of Lost. Perhaps a pitch for a future best-seller?
* For our trial France before our eyes, published last October by Editions du Seuil.