Of Fathers And Unsaid Affection: Notes On Revisiting Annie Ernaux A Man's Place

After a long time, a book made me cry heartily, and every few pages. Annie Ernaux’s A Man’s Place is a quiet, lyrical ode to her father: his mannerisms, his silences, and the fractured love that tethered them. Until I read this volume, I couldn’t have imagined how rational, poignant, and yet utterly tranquil a memoir about a parent could be, without picturesque reminiscences.

Originally published in French in 1983 and translated into English in 1992, the book’s most striking quality is its unwavering honesty. Ernaux paints a subtle portrait of her father with a clarity that is both tender and unsparing. She writes that she once tried to turn her father’s life into a novel, but stopped midway, feeling she had no right to fictionalise a life shaped so thoroughly by necessity. “No lyrical reminiscences and no triumphant display of irony,” she notes. “This way of writing comes neutrally to me.”

A Man's Place: Poignant Journey of A Father’s Life

The book opens with a regretful quote that suggests writing is often a refuge for those who have experienced betrayal. In Ernaux’s case, the betrayal seems to stem from her own inability to fully understand her father’s life and perspective. A man who began as a farmer, became a soldier, and eventually ran a grocery shop, his journey was shaped by hardship and dignity—experiences that Ernaux could only grasp in hindsight. She also regrets moving into a realm that was completely alien to him. She narrates truthfully that she was embarrassed by the fact that he couldn’t spell ‘read and approved’ once and finally settled for ‘read and a proved.’

This remorse, however, is proof of her dedicated love for him as she narrates his laughing and his spending time raising rabbits and chickens. The chasm in their relationship grew deeper when her lessons became incomprehensible to him, and after school when she stopped talking to him. This appeared to me most widespread idiosyncrasy of fathers and daughters in most of our families.  

Ernaux’s most riveting account is at the beginning of the book, where she describes her father’s death before which she appears for an interview for the designation of a post-graduate teacher. She refers to the cremation as ‘an obscene ceremony of all’ where the body "had to be wrapped in a plastic bag and dragged.’ The meticulous details of washing his body, planning an after-burial party, lowering his coffin into grave, and her mother’s frozen face can put anyone to tears. 

The author professes, “I don’t remember the doctor who was called in to sign the death certificate. Within a few hours, my father’s face had changed beyond recognition.” At this juncture in the book, reading can become more of a personal experience for anyone who has faced all this.

As the story unfolds, Ernaux traces the life of a working-class peasant man across the early 1900s to the mid-1960s. Her parents, both teenagers during the First World War, lived through the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the post-war economic boom. Against this backdrop, she charts her own transition—from the daughter of a blue-collar worker to a member of the intellectual bourgeoisie. At one point, Ernaux notes that her husband never visited her childhood home, though he admired her parents' warmth. After the war, Ernaux’s father opened a grocery-cum-café with her mother, while also working night shifts at an oil refinery. The quiet resilience and toil of their shared life—her mother managing the accounts, her father labouring without complaint—are rendered by Ernaux with deep restraint and remarkable clarity.

As the author moved into adolescence, her mother became more important to her since she was more confident around people, and they went to their favourite pastry shop together. The author then moved to London and only her mother came to receive her at the station. She then confesses that there was nothing more to say or discuss with her father at this point, but she was sure of his affection for her in his absence too. In my opinion, all relations die in the absence of a fundamental understanding about hopes and aspirations of one individual by another. In this case, the author humbly takes all the blame on her. As a result, her father confined himself to his garden, and his health deteriorated.

Among the book’s most poignant moments is when Ernaux’s father, now a grandfather, greets her young son with a fresh haircut—a quiet gesture of pride and preparation. Later, as her father falls terminally ill, her son innocently asks, “Mummy, why is the gentleman sleeping?”—a line that quietly lingers. Ernaux writes of her father’s death with characteristic restraint, noting that she was reading The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir as he was dying. The detail reads almost like a metaphor, as though life were urging her to step out of her elite "Mandarin" world and reconnect with the working-class roots she once distanced herself from—echoing the themes of Beauvoir’s novel.

After her father’s death, the family business was shut down, and Ernaux found herself inheriting a legacy she had once left behind in her ascent to the intellectual bourgeoisie. A Man’s Place is, in the end, a delicate, understated tribute—to those we love, and to those who love us without ever fully understanding our dreams.

Views expressed by the author are their own.