“SHOOTING SHADOWS” BY CHRISTIAN GUAY-POLIQUIN

Following his international success Le poids de la neige , Christian Guay-Poliquin offered an ode to wild nature this fall.

Summary

It is the story of a man walking alone in the forest towards the hunting camp where his family has taken refuge to escape the upheaval caused by a widespread power outage.

He knows he is threatened and goes into the mountains following the paths and streams.

One day when he gets lost, a mysterious boy calls out to him. He is about twelve years old, seems to be afraid of nothing and joins the man as if he had always known him.

The unusual duo will have to face the hostility of the wild lands and thwart the machinations of the offensive groups that now populate the woods.

“NAUETAKUAN: A SILENCE FOR A NOISE” BY NATASHA KANAPÉ FONTAINE

Poet, singer, actress and Innu activist, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine published a powerful first novel in the fall. Through Monica's quest for identity, she describes the reality of a young artist struggling to make her place and find her identity.

Summary

In this book about freedom and racism, the void threatens to invade Monica for good.

To finally be able to put down the heavy baggage she has inherited and return home to Pessamit in peace, she will first have to tame the storms raging within her.

Follow the thread of roads and rivers, their current sometimes allied, sometimes contrary, from one end of the continent to the other.

Rediscovering the power that is shaped one pearl at a time.

“FOREST WOMAN” BY ANAÏS BARBEAU-LAVALETTE

Author of three novels, including the cult classic La femme qui fuit , Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette offers a very personal story with Femme forê t, published in November. It is a poetic book very connected to nature, inspired by a stay in a country residence during the pandemic.

Summary

Two families are reunited in a century-old house for too long.

Winter is breaking through the walls, the wallpaper is peeling and the mice are making their nest in the piano. So we look outside, as if for the first time.

Outside, a new language unfolds. That of fireflies, white pines and sweet clover.

Outside, a milkweed picker saves the lives of soldiers, a superhero tames fears aboard his tractor, a Japanese painter traces his paintings with the sweat of lovers.

Outside, everything becomes possible again.

“THE DESIDERATA” BY MARIE HÉLÈNE POITRAS

Following the lovely novel Griffintown (2012) , which won the Prix France-Québec, Marie Hélène Poitras published La désidérata in April. It presents a dreamlike universe in which sensitive themes are addressed, including violence against women, patriarchy, desire and art.

Summary

The Desiderata is a novel that takes place in the imaginary land of Noirax. There reigns a long tradition of secrets that will one day have to be unraveled.

In Malmaison, the fathers have long maintained silence, fed the bellies and multiplied the desires: Pampelune, Héléna, la Pimparela, a line of women with tragic destinies. The father is reassured: the estate is peaceful, asleep. The door of the Maison aux parfums has been closed for fear that the truth will escape.

His son, Jeanty, back home after a romantic disappointment, begins his own quest for identity. Aliénor, a woman who intends to change the course of things, arrives in Noirax eager for answers, at the same time as the hussy, who is not the one we think. A curtain rises. In a graceful and lyrical display punctuated by songs that are only innocent in appearance, La désidérata is a tribute to the voices that have been tried to be silenced.

“THE RECONSTRUCTION OF PARADISE” BY ROBERT LALONDE

On the night of December 26, 2018, the house of author Robert Lalonde, also known for his work as an actor, was completely destroyed by a violent fire.

The fire destroyed thousands of books that were in this house that he had built with his partner and maintained with ardor for more than thirty years.

In these notebooks published in February 2021, called The Reconstruction of Paradise, he recounts the life and death of an almost sacred place, in a writing teased by the words of the masterpiece of the American poet Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, which Robert Lalonde had decided to translate...

Summary

Lalonde, who has freed himself from the tyranny of telling a straight story, narrates how he was chased from one paradise only to see another being built before his eyes.