Le Mal de mère

This article continues the psychocritical and psychobiographical analyses of Mauriac that I have been undertaking and publishing for well over ten years and which has stimulated a growing new and different interest in his writing. Based on a close reading of this problematic novel that Mauriac initially withdrew from publication, it explores not only the biographical parallels within it but the recurrent images, motifs and structural patterns, and demonstrates once again how fundamental Mauriac’s relationship with his mother was to his entire oeuvre.