With Superhistthe French writer and journalist Amélie Cordonnier invites us to think about the underside of Airbnb and all the other house rental platforms.
Since she put herself to the novels, in 2018, Amélie Cordonnier looks mainly on the intimacy of the family, on what is happening behind the door of our well -heated interiors. What interests him in there? It’s very simple: to see how and in what form the violence of the world will enter it. Because does not want, it always ends up happening.
“After writing On the custodywhich appeared in 2023, I said to myself: “Oh there, four novels that take place in an apartment, that’s enough, I have to move on!” Explains Amélie Cordonnier from her own apartment in Paris. Superhistmy fifth novel, therefore does not happen in an apartment, but in a house, she continues. I wanted to explore the Airbnb phenomenon, which seemed to me absolutely crazy, because this kind of rental platform leads us to market what we have most precious, intimacy, while, by definition, it should escape all commodification … “
The click, she had it by renting accommodation on Airbnb for her vacation.
“Me, what called me as a novelist is that Airbnb puts in relation three types of people who have absolutely nothing in common and who generally never meet in life,” specifies Amélie Cordonnier. The first are those who set their apartment or their house for rent to earn a little money, the second are those who will rent them to travel at a lower cost, and the third are those without whom nothing would be possible, but which we do not talk about: cleaning women. I realized that it was on them that all the business rested. ”
Photo provided by Flammarion/Pascal Ito editions
A rare pearl
Camille Bonhomme, one of the heroines of Superhistis precisely the daughter of one of these cleaning women. As far as she can remember, she has always seen her mother scour, dust and sweep in others. Especially at Adrien and Anaïs Besnard, who have in the French commune of Pas-de-Calais, Touquet, a secondary house 300 m from the sea.
But as they stay there less and less often, they will one day have the idea of renting it on Airbnb. And for the management of tenants and cleaning, it is in Sylvie Bonhomme that they will entrust everything. She has been working for them for a good fortnight already, and they trust her entirely.
“I was keen to show in this book the working conditions of women cleaning up for Airbnb or any other rental platform,” underlines Amélie Cordonnier. They have absolutely nothing to do with those of the weekly cleaning of an apartment or a house. In real life, no one asks his cleaning lady to clean the oven every three days, the interior of the dishwasher, the interior of the cupboards, etc. That exists only in the ruthless universe of Airbnb, which imported the criteria of drastic cleanliness of luxury hotels. Except that in a palace, so large, the suites may be, you don’t have a kitchen! ”
“I wanted to describe and denounce all this invisible violence of our system,” she continues. If there is dust on a counter or a few crumbs on the sofa, the tenants leave a mixed comment or a negative appreciation under the profile of the owners, and there, woe. The latter could see their number of stars drop and their rental conditions called into question. ”
Like a tragedy
From the first pages of Superhistwe understand that something terrible happened in the house of Touquet. What? We will only know it at the very end.
“I peeled all the various facts which are linked to Airbnb,” says Amélie Cordonnier. There are many. I then wrote the novel, which is built in five acts, like a tragedy. He recounts the emergence of misfortune in our daily newspapers, how ordinary people moved by the desire to round off ends are taken in a gear. Finally, everything is for rent today. The house of some, but also the arms, the work force of others. ”
“People are not going to stop renting an apartment on Airbnb,” concludes Amélie Cordonnier. But if they now think of the cleaning lady when they rent an apartment, well, I will not have written this book for nothing! ”
Photo provided by Flammarion
Superhist
Amélie Cordonnier
Flammarion
176 pages
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