Hymn to Moray Eels

In a rigid postwar institution where friendships burn bright and heartbreak stings sharper than medicine, Mila must decide whether to retreat or risk everything for love.

Within the cloistered world of a 1950s French sanatorium, sixteen-year-old Mila is learning more than just how to recover; she’s learning how to want. Stranded among a cast of unruly girls, she navigates longing and the quiet defiance of being a young lesbian in a world that prefers silence. There’s Marie, full of teasing bravado; the two Nicoles, who always weep; and Josette, who fills the air with accordion melodies. Then there’s Paule, a striking staff member whose attention is intoxicating--until it isn’t. Just as Mila begins to believe in the possibility of something real, Paule turns toward another, leaving Mila caught between jealousy and the aching pull of first love.

Originally published in 1985, Hymn to Moray Eels is a rare and brilliant gem of queer literature, balancing wry humor with aching tenderness. Mireille Best’s unsentimental prose captures the bittersweet contradictions of adolescence, creating a coming-of-age novel that is both deeply personal and strikingly universal.

Mireille Best is the pseudonym of Mireille Lemarchand (1943-2005), who was born and raised in a working-class family in Le Havre, France. Unable to pursue university studies due to health problems, Best worked in a plastics factory after high school and later as a civil servant. She is the author of four volumes of short stories and three novels. Stephanie Schechner is professor emerita of French at Widener University, Pennsylvania, and has published extensively on Mireille Best as well as on other French and Francophone women writers, including Jovette Marchessault, Colette, Nathalie Sarraute, Rachilde, Marguerite Duras, and Jocelyne François.