Peace in a world of ghosts: Cyrille Falisse

Initial crisis and narrative perspective

The debut novel by Cyrille Falisse, Seuls les fantômes (Belfond, 2025) opens with an abrupt crisis: Melvile, who has been left by his partner, loses all sense of inner stability. The breakup is portrayed not as ordinary heartbreak, but as a collapse of physical and psychological functions. The silencing of desire accompanies the loss of self-awareness. This physical disturbance is simultaneously a narrative signal: The world, as Melvile perceives it, has lost its contours.

The final sentence provides the narrative impetus: his ex-girlfriend's words are not only the reason for the breakup, but also the source of his self-doubt and the obsession that torments him internally. Ironically, even the futon bed, once described as the "perfect tool of..." Kama Sutra"Acquired at her suggestion, it is now an instrument of torture and a physical reminder of lost intimacy and the failure of his relationship. On a physical level, the depression manifests as sexual impotence and despair. His body feels like a "frozen torso, head in fog," while his obsessive thoughts return as "loops," louder and stronger ("plus fortes, plus assourdissantes").

This excerpt presents Melvile's first literary contribution under the pseudonym Dorian G. in the ODC sector, where he uses radical, raw poetry as an outlet for his despair. His sexual dysfunction and impotence, which enraged his ex-girlfriend, also metaphorically represent his general inability to experience joy or zest for life. He refers to himself as a "phantom man," which echoes the central theme of the novel—the convocation of spirits. His lyrical tone is characterized by physical disintegration and violence ("Je crise dans l'asthme," "Je ramone, tamponne") and addresses the failure of his attempts to find solace through anonymous sex ("Je plaque des corps… sans visage"). The poetry is a sublimated form of his obsession and depression, creating the necessary resonance to attract Tangere (Alice) and thus set the healing process in motion. These inner turmoils are often experienced as violent, physical events: the "boucles" drum on his temples like a "swarm of hornets," and he sees himself as a "hole that deepens throughout his entire body." Writing and the virtual identity "Dorian G." serve as an attempt to sublimate this "phantom man" and allow his ego to blossom again "on a pile of ashes."

Psychic Landscapes: Ghosts, Bodies, and Digital Spaces

Nature and water metaphors serve to locate and emotionally assess Melvile's trauma. His obsessive thoughts return "par vagues" ("in waves"), and he describes his fear of sinking in the sea of ​​decay "entre les algues et les coffres au trésor" ("between the seaweed and the treasure chests"). Healing, on the other hand, is linked to movement and fluidity: the cold water of the shower offers a moment of peace in which "l'eau m'apaise" ("the water soothes me"). Yet the past is deceptive; Alice/Tangere warns him that the valleys "fill with thick mud if you stir up the dead too much." The "limon" ("mud") here represents the danger that the careless exploration of traumatic memories contaminates the terrain and leads to a whirlpool ("tournoient les voix du passé") instead of bringing clarity. In contrast to the "étang, eau stagnante" ("pond, stagnant water") of his depression, which is a "refuge for newts and frogs" ("repaire des tritons et grenouilles"), freedom lies in movement. Alice affirms: "il n'y a de liberté que dans le mouvement" ("there is only freedom in movement"). Even at the end, Melvile finds peace by seeing the faces of the vanished in the "clapotis du courant" ("rippling of the stream") of the mountain rivers, suggesting that spirits can be processed in flowing nature instead of remaining trapped in the static "prison de la mémoire".

The relationship, the end of which Melvile cannot come to terms with, is retrospectively reconstructed as an unhealthy web of dependency, abuse, shame, and irresolvable expectations. The novel ruthlessly exposes this dynamic, for example, when Melvile describes how he increasingly allowed himself to be forced into roles demanded by his partner: "Elle avait fait de moi un putain de nécrophile" ("She had turned me into a damned necrophile"). Sexuality here does not serve intimacy but becomes an instrument of power, fear, and fixation. The separation does not break a healthy bond but rather severs the last remaining support of an already destabilized individual.

In parallel, Falisse presents a second field: the digital network into which Melvile takes refuge. The platform is structured according to colors, codes, and logics of recognition, which quickly assume the function of a substitute environment. The text Melvile publishes there generates a response for the first time in a while—albeit through an aestheticized self-destruction: “Bravo, c’est très fort. On sent la rage contenue…” (“Bravo, that’s very powerful. You can feel the suppressed rage…”). The platform thus becomes a space in which suffering can be communicated but not cured; it distracts instead of stabilizing.

Melvile's entry into the "réseau social privé sur invitation" through his girlfriend Joanne is a crucial turning point, offering him a way out of the self-imposed prison of obsession. The initial distraction is short-lived, however, as his "boucles" (obsessive thoughts) about his ex-girlfriend immediately return "plus fortes, plus assourdissantes," highlighting the depth of his psychological torment. The choice of the pseudonym "Dorian G."—an allusion to Oscar Wilde's "Dorian Gray" (especially since he later has a profile picture that physically resembles him) advantageous (is) – marks the beginning of a new, albeit virtual, identity. This avatar allows him to leave behind that “faible et fragile” existence that his ex-wife described him as and to express his radical, desperate feelings in raw poetry.

The encounter with Tangere, who exists only as a profile, marks a turning point. Her message, "Je ne trébuche pas sur vos mots, ils me portent…" ("I don't stumble over your words, they carry me…"), strikes Melvile with an intensity that the novel describes with precision, yet without pathos. The digital exchange brings a moment of calm: "Rien. Pas de voix… le silence, la quiétude" ("Nothing. No voices… silence, quiet"). The contact remains fragile, but it demonstrates that communication can, at least temporarily, free Melvile from his inner turmoil.

The revelation that Alice (Tangere) comes from Saint-Dalmas Valdeblore, Melvile's central childhood place and "refuge," triggers a moment of overwhelming significance. The immediate result is inner peace: "I hear nothing. Nothing. No voice, no sound, no wind in my lungs. Silence, quiet." This shows that confronting the past and reconnecting with childhood can silence the "boils" of madness (his obsessions and fears). The unlikely coincidence (two isolated people from the same small mountain village meeting in an obscure online network in Brussels) shatters Melvile's perception of reality and gives him the feeling that "nothing is more beautiful than childhood surfacing" ("Nothing is more beautiful than childhood surfacing"). Alice/Tangere proves to be an echo or mirror of the lost homeland and the original, innocent self that he seeks to find in his depression.

Thus, the forms of communication create a tension between direct human interaction, inner monologue, and digitally mediated communication. While Melvile is barely able to act in the real social environment, seems incapable of coherent conversation, and avoids real-life contact, inner voices and digital chats are gaining increasing importance. The digital network offers a formalized, rule-based, and depersonalized form of communication that simultaneously creates protection and distance. The conversations with Tangere mark a transition: they show that emotional connection can arise despite anonymity, but only in controlled, text-based interactions that do not overwhelm Melvile. The novel thus juxtaposes different levels of communication: the destructive, asymmetrical communication of the past relationship; the overwhelming, unmediated outside world; the regulating communication structures of the platform; and finally, the fragile, cautious re-engagement with interpersonal understanding. This constellation illustrates how Melvile uses language and exchange to make sense of his psychological disorientation.

At the same time, the so-called "phantoms" come to the fore—three women from Melvile's past, whose memories overlay his present. The description of his childhood friend Laetitia precisely connects memory and pain: "Deux perroquets orange et vert, voilà ce que nous étions devenus." ("Two orange-green parrots—that's what we had become.") Falisse makes it clear that this past is not "idealized" but functional: it explains the vulnerability, the expectations, and the need for repetition that determine Melvile's crisis response.

The novel also unfolds a second, even deeper biographical layer: the mother figure, whose death represents a central void. Melvile describes her in a mixture of documentary style and tenderness: “Elle avait un grand front… ses yeux étaient mélancoliques…” (“She had a high forehead… her eyes were melancholic…”). The loss of his mother does not fully explain the crisis, but it forms the backdrop for the recurring experience of abandonment. Melvile’s relationship with his mother is defined from childhood onward by a complex mixture of intense attachment, pathological jealousy, and deep-seated guilt. She, called “La Galopante” (The Galloping One), embodied an excessive theatricality and demanded an almost transgressive intimacy from Melvile; this manifested itself in childhood dreams of the “complexe de jeep,” where he wanted to devour her. This relationship was marked by his mother's jealousy, whom Melvile referred to as "a cancer that won't give its name" even before her physical illness metastasized. She even made him complicit in her dramas by ordering him to spy on his father and check his underwear. The central trauma, however, is his mother's protracted death from cancer and her request for euthanasia. Melvile is convinced that his desperate cry, "Il faut que cesse cette lente agonie" ("This slow agony must end"), prompted the nurse to administer the lethal dose, leading him to see himself as his mother's murderer: "Mes mots ont tué ma mère." Coping with this unbearable guilt and the broken promise to care for his father and sister drives Melvile to seek out the ghosts of his past and redefine his own identity far from his mother's shadow, even though his mother assures him in a later vision that he was not responsible for her death, as she had already been sedated.

Memory, loss, and fragile healing

In the final third, the novel opens up into a narrative of travel and searching, though not truly motivated by geography. The decision to search for Nina in Tanzania seems impulsive, yet consistent: “J'ai besoin de retrouver quelqu'un.” (“I need to find someone again.”) The journey replaces self-destruction; it is an attempt to actively process the past instead of continuing to be overwhelmed by it. Whether the search is successful is ultimately irrelevant—its psychological significance is what matters. The return to France leads Melvile to a quieter, more secluded life in the mountains. Nature is not romanticized, but its stabilizing presence is clearly recognizable. In one of the final scenes, Melvile sees the deceased or lost women as silent projections in the water: “Leurs visages d'alluvions jouent dans les remous…” (“Their faces, formed from sediment, play in the eddies…”). The ghosts do not disappear; they become integrable.

The novel doesn't end with a recovery, but neither does it end with resignation. Melvile recognizes his fragility and articulates it as a strength: "Je suis fragile. Mais ce n'est pas une faiblesse." ("I am fragile. But that is not a weakness.") The narrative structure of the text works precisely toward this: the possibility of living with the uncontrollable. The ghosts are not defeated, but they lose their menacing power. Memory, loss, and desire remain part of an open-ended process, which the novel traces precisely, unspectacularly, and with profound humanity.

The special aesthetic appeal of Seuls les fantômes The novel's strength lies in the combination of a radical psychological introspection and unpretentious language, which makes the narrator's emotional turmoil accessible with unusual clarity. Falisse succeeds in portraying existential experiences—loss, disorientation, self-alienation—through vivid and analytical prose that feels neither melodramatic nor detached. The powerful metaphors remain consistently grounded in concrete perceptions and bodily sensations, creating a dense texture in which psychological processes become directly palpable. Furthermore, the novel's structure, employing digital forms of communication and mental loops, establishes a contemporary narrative style: fragmentary, rhythmic, oscillating between reflection and overwhelming emotion. This approach generates an unusual balance between vulnerability and formal rigor—a tension that lends the text its enduring power.