Thierry

Thierry, Loïc’s young cousin from the Lot, is a journalist and an important helper in Loïc’s research into the cameo and the Castelmont family. His death in the Bataclan attack on November 13, 2015, abruptly ends a promising career and ties his personal story to the novel’s reflection on public violence, silenced reporting, and the possible reach of the cursed stone.

Identity and Work

Thierry is described as a young cousin from the Lot, about the same age as Aurelio. Loïc had grown very attached to him, and Thierry had provided valuable assistance with Loïc’s investigations into the cameo and the Castelmont family. The account also notes that he had begun a brilliant career as a journalist, making him not only a relative and research ally but a professional whose work placed him close to contested public subjects.

Journalism and Silenced Subjects

A few weeks before his death, Thierry confided to Loïc that he increasingly felt stifled at his newspaper. Certain topics had become taboo there, including Islamist radicalization in the suburbs and the burning and desecration of churches. This disclosure gives his journalistic success a counterpoint: his career was advancing, yet he felt that the institution around him was narrowing what could be reported. The novel presents that pressure as part of Thierry’s circumstances without specifying what response he planned to make.

Death at the Bataclan

On November 13, 2015, Thierry was among the 137 people killed by Islamist terrorists at the Bataclan in Paris. He died alongside his young companion during the attack. The account places his death within an intensely bitter coincidence: the band playing onstage was Eagles of Death Metal, and the song being played at the time was titled Kiss the devil. When Loïc learned that detail later, he wondered whether the cameo’s diabolical influence might have extended even to this distant event. The possibility belongs to Loïc’s interpretation; the narrative does not establish it as the cause of the attack.

Narrative Role and Historical Context

Thierry’s death reaches Loïc and Laurence as a sudden, devastating loss, and also removes a trusted contributor from Loïc’s research. The account pairs it with Aurelio’s assassination two months later, presenting the two deaths as occurring amid an increasingly turbulent period. It then widens from these personal losses to a historical argument about the years since the September 11 attacks: the United States’ wars in the Middle East and elsewhere, the continuation of what the narrator calls hegemonic policy across administrations, and the later coup in Ukraine, which brought war to Russia’s borders. Thierry’s brief but consequential presence thus connects family grief and the silencing of journalism to the novel’s larger, politically charged account of violence.