Raw (Shipwreck, Secrets, and the Afterlife of an Infamous Family History)

A French sculptor transfigures her family’s long-protected secret into art

In 1816, the French naval ship Medusa ran aground off the coast of Senegal. Some of the officers and crew escaped on lifeboats, but nearly 150 of its passengers were forced to board an improvised raft. The raft remained adrift for thirteen terrifying days of delirium, chaos, murder, and cannibalism. Only fifteen men survived.

Clarisse Griffon du Bellay’s ancestor was among those survivors, and his annotated version of the officially published account told a very different story from the surviving officers’ tale of heroism in which they credited themselves with preserving as many lives as possible.

This annotated book was passed from eldest son to eldest son and kept hidden for generations until Griffon du Bellay received scanned pages from her father. As the inherited nightmare of its contents invaded her dreams, she began carving monumental sculptures in oak and beechwood, but that wasn’t enough to release her from “The vertigo of knowing that your blood is born of this. That you are made of this, that you would have done the same thing.” For that, she needed to write Raw.