With his first novel, What I know about youÉric Chacour lived the dream of every writer, namely a rave reception and an avalanche of selections for prestigious prizes, including the Renaudot and the Femina, in addition to receiving the Discovery Grant from the Pierre Prince of Monaco Foundation.
His autumn was just as wonderful as that of Kevin Lambert, to whom I spoke a lot during his winning of the Prix Médicis. I had to meet Éric Chacour, whose novel I read in the media frenzy that surrounded it. He received me at his home, back from his whirlwind in France, and I was able to discover a man as humble as he was sensitive, who still floats on a cloud.
It’s the journey that is fascinating about Chacour. Literature in Quebec is largely made by literary people, that is to say by people who studied literature or who work in the fields of writing or publishing. Éric Chacour is not part of this inner circle, he studied applied economics and international relations at the University of Montreal. So why literature? How did he arrive at this first novel, as poignant as it is mastered, that we can’t put down?
“I think I’ve always loved writing,” he says. My big dream when I was a teenager was mainly to write songs. I created new lyrics to songs by Lara Fabian, Céline Dion, Patricia Kaas and Mylène Farmer. »
I never thought I would write a novel one day. But I wanted to write one Romeo and Juliet which took place in Egypt, a novel of love and family, without falling into exoticism.
Eric Chacour
What I know about you takes us into a moving love story between two completely opposite men, Tarek and Ali, a passion that will lead Tarek into exile in Montreal, because it will derail his life and that of those close to him, even though he was such a docile boy . But it is in these moments when everything goes wrong that we sometimes experience, believes Éric Chacour. “I like this idea that we are not alive for an entire lifetime, and that in those rare moments when that happens, we know how to connect to that. »
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Éric Chacour especially dreamed of writing songs as a teenager.
What I know about you is the kind of book that you can’t talk too much about without falling into spoilers. All I can say is that it is beautiful, sweet, sensual, full of surprises that create suspense, and I insist, so well mastered that it is difficult to believe that it is a first novel. And here’s what’s funny: at the Alto publishing house, which immediately jumped on the manuscript, we also had doubts, Éric Chacour tells me with a laugh. We thought it was an in-house writer testing the editorial process or perhaps plagiarism. Because Éric Chacour came out of nowhere with this book that shattered everything.
When a novel is born at the Book Fair
In fact, Éric Chacour was born in Pointe-Claire to Egyptian parents who met in Montreal, where several members of his family live. He grew up in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce until the age of 10, then went to live in France for around 25 years, before settling back in Quebec a few years ago.
But for a good decade, What I know about you was germinating within him, and it was somewhat born at the Montreal Book Fair (SLM).
Éric Chacour likes to attend the SLM with his cousins and when they learned that he had written a book, they created a game consisting of finding a publisher for him among the many stands at the show.
The Alto publishing house being one of a cousin’s favorites, and because the covers are beautiful, Éric Chacour sent them his manuscript. He barely had time to send copies to other houses before he was detained.
In short, the first-time novelist could very well have tried his luck at Gallimard or Grasset, but chance meant that What I know about you belongs to Quebec literature. Which in no way prevented him from exploding on the French literary scene.
The novel was published in January 2023, but just before, Éric Chacour experienced a strange Book Fair in Montreal last year. At a publisher’s dinner with his authors, he was the only one who had not yet published. “It was intimidating, but I was also very excited because my book was going to be published soon,” he recalls. It’s also the salon where I took my courage in both hands and where I went to see the man who is my absolute idol, Michel Marc Bouchard. I had a somewhat magical discussion with him. »
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Éric Chacour will experience his first Montreal Book Fair as a writer this year.
It’s moving when you think about it, but Éric Chacour will experience his first Montreal Book Fair as a writer this year, after his successful return to French literature. Like Kevin Lambert, he accompanied his book on all platforms, to the point of making Zoom at hen time with students for Renaudot and Femina for high school students. Three days before his appearance on the show The big bookstore, a protuberance has grown on his eye, he shows me the photo of his swollen face and I laugh to the point of tears. “The ophthalmologist told me: don’t look, it’s stress. I was on TV on the biggest French-speaking literary show. I put cortisone ointment on for two days, it was horrible. But at the same time, I was happy to experience these emotions, while wanting to return to this quieter Quebec. »
A musicality
Much has been made of the poetic character of his first novel, but perhaps we should talk about musicality. Like Flaubert, Éric Chacour subjects his texts to the ordeal test, he reads them aloud, and if it sounds bad, he contacts his publisher to modify his novel which has been reprinted several times. “Perhaps also because I don’t want this novel to be completely finished,” he confides, his eyes shining.
Éric Chacour describes himself as a laborious and contemplative reader. A single beautiful sentence can fill him for an entire day. “I think that to write, you need to have an appetite for words, but you can work with something other than literature. For example, I love French song, and I think one of the greatest authors in the world is Jacques Brel. »
What if Lara Fabian or Céline Dion asked her for a song? “Ah well that’s the absolute dream! », he exclaims. “When I say that to booksellers, I see them breaking down! But it was really my dream when I was a kid, and I think I worked on my writing like that. »
We’re going to launch this into the newspaper and into the universe – after all, Éric Chacour would never have hoped in his wildest dreams to experience everything he experienced with his first novel. So why not a song for Lara or Céline?
Éric Chacour will be at the Montreal Book Fair on November 23, 24 and 25 for signing sessions, and will participate in Literary Prescriptions on November 23 at 8 p.m., as well as in a major interview on November 24 at 6:30 p.m.
What I know about you
Alto
296 pages