Lili Is Crying

This scintillating 1953 novel from Bessette (1918–2000) follows the beautiful Lili, who’s 40 and looks 20, through one heartache after another as she contends with her possessive mother’s hold on her. At the beginning, Lili is crying because she can’t bring herself to commit to a handsome and wealthy suitor, whom she loves, because leaving home in Provence would break her mother Charlotte’s heart. Still, she desires to escape and eventually runs off with another man, a foreigner from a Slavic country, though she doesn’t love him. After a brief courtship in a nearby town and an aborted pregnancy (Lili desperately wanted the baby but feared the shame it would bring to Charlotte), they marry and return to the village. The man means well, but Charlotte berates him, prompting him to demand she choose him or her mother. Lili’s response is surprising and dramatic, though what keeps this novel running is not the plot but Bessette’s remarkable prose, complete with freewheeling swerves from spoken dialogue to internal monologue, propelling the action without losing sight of the characters’ intense emotions. Briggs’s ear is highly trained to Bessette’s singular register, making this rediscovery all the more noteworthy. (June)