Chloé Cruchaudet’s Mau Genre (Mauvais genre in French, Wrong Gender in English) is one of those graphic novels that stays with the reader long after the last page has been turned. Inspired by true events, it tells the remarkable story of Paul and Louise Grappe, an ordinary Parisian couple whose lives are transformed by the brutality of war, the fluidity of gender, and the search for freedom in a society bound by rigid norms. Cruchaudet’s work moves beyond historical retelling and ventures into an exploration of identity, trauma, and the unstable boundaries between love and destruction.
At its core, Mau Genre begins as a love story. Paul and Louise meet, fall in love, and marry just before the outbreak of the First World War. Their happiness, however, is short-lived. Paul is called to the front, and what he experiences in the trenches shatters any illusion of heroism or glory. Cruchaudet captures these early war scenes with a chilling economy of color and form. Black and sickly green dominate, evoking both the decay of human life and the collapse of reason. Paul’s trauma manifests in hallucinations and despair; when a comrade’s head is blown apart before his eyes, he loses all sense of self. To escape the unbearable cycle of violence, he mutilates himself, hoping for discharge. Yet the army is merciless, and Paul soon faces the prospect of being sent back. Terrified, he deserts and makes his way to Paris, where Louise hides him in their tiny room.
The confinement becomes unbearable. One night, desperate to breathe the air of freedom again, Paul puts on one of Louise’s dresses and ventures outside to buy wine. To his surprise, the disguise works. That night marks the birth of Suzanne. What begins as a survival strategy slowly evolves into something deeper. Louise, initially fearful for their safety, teaches her husband how to move, speak, and dress like a woman. The early scenes of transformation are infused with humor and tenderness. They are lovers improvising a disguise, yet they are also exploring new roles in a changing world. When Suzanne enters Louise’s workplace at the textile factory, she discovers a sense of belonging and ease. Among the seamstresses, Suzanne gossips, laughs, and experiences an unexpected comfort in the rhythms of femininity. The disguise starts to feel less like a mask and more like a revelation.
As the years pass, the war ends and an amnesty is declared for deserters. Suzanne can finally return to being Paul. What should be good news instead feels like a death sentence. The man who re-emerges is bitter, restless, and broken. The fluid freedom of Suzanne’s existence gives way to the suffocating weight of male expectations. Paul drinks heavily, his temper flares, and his fame as a cross-dressing deserter brings humiliation rather than pride. The tragedy reaches its climax when Louise, exhausted by years of emotional and physical abuse, shoots him. In court, her defense as a battered wife wins her full acquittal. Society forgives her, but the moral wreckage of their lives remains.
Cruchaudet’s storytelling draws its power from restraint. She never sensationalizes her subject, nor does she reduce it to a simple moral lesson. Her lines are delicate yet charged with emotion, and her use of color is masterful. Shades of gray dominate the pages, punctuated by bursts of red and purple that signal moments of desire, danger, or defiance. Red, in particular, becomes a recurring symbol: the blush of passion, the fabric of femininity, the blood of violence. As Suzanne emerges, the color transforms from soft rose to fierce crimson, mirroring her journey from disguise to embodiment. When blood finally returns to Louise’s hands, it feels like the story has come full circle.
The book’s success in France was immediate and immense. Winner of multiple prestigious awards, including the Prix du Public at the Angoulême Festival and the ACBD Critics’ Prize, Mau Genre captivated readers with its bold mix of historical authenticity and emotional subtlety. Cruchaudet based her narrative on La Garçonne et l’Assassin, the historical study by Danièle Voldman and Fabrice Virgili, but she reimagines it through the language of comics, where expression, rhythm, and silence carry as much meaning as words. Her panels flow freely, often breaking traditional borders, suggesting that neither gender nor narrative can be confined.
What makes Mau Genre so compelling is its refusal to settle into clarity. It does not glorify Paul’s transformation, nor does it condemn it. It shows that freedom can be intoxicating and destructive, that love can be both tender and cruel, and that identity is a battlefield as treacherous as any trench. Cruchaudet portrays Paul and Louise not as symbols, but as flawed, passionate, and very human beings caught in a tide of change they can neither control nor fully understand.
In the end, Mau Genre is a story about survival, but not the heroic kind. It is about surviving the unbearable weight of expectations, the scars of war, and the fragile limits of love. Through the delicate interplay of image and text, Cruchaudet reminds us that history often hides its most extraordinary truths in the lives of ordinary people. Paul and Louise’s story may be rooted in the past, but its questions about identity, freedom, and the cost of authenticity remain unsettlingly modern.
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