People sometimes ask me— with a hint of suspicion— where my ideas come from. They emerge from experiences, lived or not, twisted and distorted until they become unrecognizable. Two of my books, An Appalling Beauty and A Matter of Scent (not yet published), stem from a vague premise. Of Flesh and Tears, a new psychological thriller novel, however, would never have come to life without several incidents that shaped my life, and above all, a return to nature that held more than one surprise for me…
Back to Nature
Silence reigns in the orchard. No birds, and not many insects either—the absence of one leading to the absence of the other. The trees stand at attention in parallel rows, on hard, barren ground. Their branches bow under the weight of an abundance of fruit—clementines and oranges. An oasis of plenty in the middle of the desert. Later, I would witness pesticide spraying, the jets so powerful they soared past the treetops before falling back in nauseating droplets that, once dry, powdered the glossy leaves with whitish stains. From my very first visit to the land where we planned to build our house, I felt the urge to embrace natural farming.
Nothing shatters illusions faster than reality; nature does not yield without a fight. The first two years, the cessation of chemical treatments triggered an invasion of slugs. They emerged at night from their hiding places, invaded the vegetable garden, nestled in the cat’s dish, and smeared the walls and floor with their plump bodies, leaving behind glistening trails. With the flourishing weeds came birds, insects, and fungi. The artificial desert slowly transformed into a lush miniature forest, yet it never reached the harmony I had envisioned. Fruits infested with fly larvae or devoured by ring-necked parakeets, stunted vegetables, spontaneous fires… I witnessed aerial battles between birds and found soft, feathered corpses scattered along the paths. Other creatures arrived. Stealthy but deadly vipers, equally discreet but harmless black snakes, fire ants with their searing sting, hedgehogs ravaged by mange, jackals laughing and mocking in the shadows, porcupines—usually placid—turning into armored tanks when threatened. One of our overly daring dogs learned this the hard way, ending up with three quills embedded in its cheek.
The dogs themselves were not immune to discord—fights and severe injuries inflicted on one another. I, too, got bitten because of a female in heat. A painful episode, both from the bite itself and the rabies vaccination—four injections—administered after several hours of waiting in the emergency room, ultimately unnecessary since the culprit turned out to be one neighbor’s dog.
The Arrival of the Chickens
A young vegan activist, a friend of my daughter’s, asked if we could take in some cockerels rescued from a ritual slaughter (Kaparot), since we already had a few hens. I felt a slight disappointment upon learning that they wouldn’t lay eggs, but a video depicting their suffering convinced me. Unlike a piece of red meat, so clean and innocuous in its plastic-wrapped tray, some footage of factory farming and slaughterhouses rival the worst horror films. I am not a vegetarian—out of lack of will—but I have, by ethical choice, taste, and health reasons, become an avid consumer of plant-based cuisine. And though I sometimes give in to the temptation of a steak, I would at least like to see animals given a comfortable life before they are eaten.
My daughter’s friend warned us. These males, bred to grow as quickly as possible and maximize meat production, never knew satiety and produced extremely foul-smelling droppings. We would need to monitor their diet and accept that they wouldn’t live long. None of these warnings stopped me. When they arrived, the chickens—small, filthy, and nearly featherless—huddled together, casting frightened glances all around. They grew, regained their plumage, reached adulthood… and began crowing at all hours of the day and night. That legend about the rooster heralding the sunrise? Nonsense. I tolerated their cries at ungodly hours without much complaint, proud of their successful adaptation. In the morning, I opened the coop door—white feathers and red crests against a backdrop of green… They roamed the garden, always sticking together, pecking and enthusiastically tilling the soil with their claws. In the late afternoon, I fed them and locked them up for the night.
Alas, violence would soon shatter this pastoral idyll. It first appeared in the form of Coco, our Shih-Tzu, barely larger than the two bloodied corpses she had just slaughtered and seemed to present to me as a gift. Another day, I became the victim of a surprise attack. A cruel peck, so swift I couldn’t even identify the culprit. I might have doubted my own pain if not for the triangular mark on my leg, from which a drop of blood oozed. Perhaps those few seconds of disbelief—that uncertain moment when one questions their own perception and judgment—inspired the struggles of Claire, my unreliable heroine.
I had saved these chickens, fed them, cleaned their filth. I had given them ideal living conditions… How could they show me such ingratitude? More pecks followed, and feeding them became an ordeal. I stubbornly continued to release them each morning, hoping that, exhausted and content from their day outdoors, they would stop tormenting me. I barricaded myself inside the house, but they would sometimes come to spy on me. With a seemingly innocent stride, they would perch on the windowsill of my office, tapping insistently on the glass. The moment I stepped outside, they stretched their flexible necks and turned their round eyes toward me before launching their charge. Watching me flee, a flock of roosters at my heels, might have been comical. I was not laughing, though I found the reversal almost justified. Human greed had awakened the aggression of these brutes. Like in a real life psychological horror book, I was no longer dealing with chickens, but with enraged velociraptors, determined not to end their short lives in a stew pot.
Despite our efforts, we couldn’t protect them from predators either. If I had felt hunted, they soon became prey as well. First, to the neighbor’s dog, who killed for sport, and then to jackals, seeking food. I gave three roosters to an acquaintance who found them delicious. The flock dwindled until only one survivor remained, keeping company with smaller, more agile hens. One morning, as I opened the shutters, I saw—right in the middle of the lawn, just outside my bedroom window—a jackal holding the last rooster by the neck. Upon spotting me, the animal fled, abandoning the bird, still alive but paralyzed. I called the vet, expecting him to put an end to its suffering with compassion. Instead of a syringe, he pulled out a jar of green clay, applying it to the wounds before handing me a list of care instructions.
A few days later, the rooster stood up and started walking again. It kept a slight limp from the attack, though it didn’t seem to bother it. To my great surprise, it then laid enormous eggs. In my ignorance, I had not realized it was a hen. She lived a peaceful life until her untimely death, likely caused by heatstroke.
And here's my inspiration for a psychological thriller book! Back to the land, vegan eating, mutant poultry meat, inconsiderate neighbors, a vet with unexpected methods, belligerent dogs… From this chaos, the story of Claire emerged. Like me, she wrestles with the absurd and the unpredictable. Her world was born from mine.
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