Creezy
One of the review copies, stamped as such.
Signed presentation inscription: “à Maurice Chevalier, pour le plaisir de lui redire toute mon admiration et toute mon amitié, Félicien Marceau.”
Publisher's insert preserved.
Creezy — the nickname of a fragile, radiant cover girl — tells the story of her brief affair with a forty-something member of parliament torn between respectability and passion. Their romance, undermined by the incompatibility of two worlds — one of power, the other of glamour — ends in tragedy. Beneath the apparent slightness of the plot, Marceau delivers a biting critique of consumer society, the spectacle made of the female body, and the existential emptiness bred by modernity.
Awarded the Prix Goncourt on the third ballot (6 votes against 2 for Robert Sabatier, and one each for Patrick Modiano and Michel Bataille), the novel sparked lively debate: some saw it as a slight entertainment, others as a Balzacian moral fresco updated for its time. Marceau, until then known chiefly for his plays, confirmed with this prize his stature as a novelist.