Philippe Delerm: “With Vincent, we have one thing in common: we are quite tearful”

2023-08-27 15:00:09
Philippe Delerm, in 2015. JOËL SAGET/AFP

Philippe Delerm, 72, has, with his singer son, “a relationship not too bad overall”. He and his wife still live in Normandy, where Vincent grew up, where two grandsons play in the next room. Perhaps it is to them that he owes the expression “spider star” and the pleasure of writing with his finger on the mist of a window, described in his last book Suspended Moments (Threshold, 120 pages, 14.90 euros). Writer, literature teacher, he was a young father, at 25, after “choosing the person to spend with [sa] vie », Martine, illustrator. When Philippe Delerm says of him that Vincent is truly an… only son, he leaves a silence between the two words to make it clear what is really special about this son.

The first time you felt like a father?

At birth, which was not so easy. He took a long time to utter his first cry, and after those fifteen minutes, which seemed very long to me, he was not in very good shape, had tremors and had to be put in an incubator. It was in front of the window of the incubator, in front of this great fragility, that I felt like a father.

Have you ever cried in front of your son?

Ah yes, it’s a common point that we have with Vincent: we are quite tearful. When we have emotions, when we see performances.

Also listen to Vincent Delerm: “I like to say sentimental things without saying the feelings themselves”

Worst thing you’ve said to your child?

During the high school years, he had a rock band, he wrote lyrics and music. I thought they were good lyrics, but we didn’t really hear them. It seemed like a shame to me, and I told him. Today, I remember it as something that could have hurt him, or that I could have said otherwise.

Worst thing he ever said to you?

As soon as he started to have creative inclinations, I put a kind of pressure on him to record. It was a way of emphasizing that I thought it was worth it, but I think that behind it was the fear that he would die leaving no trace. He told me something like: “Your pressure is a bit morbid. » He was completely right.

The mania that annoyed you with your parents and that you still reproduce?

My mother had the fault of wanting to please everyone. I’m like her, I always want people to find me nice. I can, like her, waste time with people to please them. Vincent is more lucid than me and was very early on. At a time when I was in difficulty and when my manuscripts were refused, he said to me: “Don’t waste your time with that guy. » He was 7 or 8 years old!

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