The game of visible and invisible led by the paternal character in the novel Non-dits (2000) of Gisèle Fournier betrays the threat which presses on the story of a family torn by the secrets of the past. The father keeps out of the oppressive closed world he is sentenced to, using silence. Far from losing him, this attitude allows him to be marked out. And actually in the slow succession of the novel’s monologues, his image and his presence persist even after his suicide. The look of both character and reader is thus headed towards this paternal figure. Once narrativized, this vision allows us to question the contemporary illness which affects the transmission.