Snow trails
Kev Lambert
A chameleon writer if ever there was one, Kev Lambert completely reinvents itself with this fourth novel, which is rooted in the exalted and disturbing imagination of childhood. Zoey and Émie-Anne, two cousins of about ten years old, spend the holiday season with their family — from which they both feel strangers — in Lac-Saint-Jean. Launched in pursuit of a masked and frightening creature, the two kids will take the paths of a forest populated by monsters and the hauntings of their unconscious. A brilliant and exciting narrative of trauma, which pays homage to the incisive pens of Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates, and to the immersive universe of Zelda.
Heliotrope, October 2
Wear the mask
Paul Serge Forest
After delivering one of the greatest literary UFOs of recent years with his first novel, Everything is original (VLB), winner of the Robert-Cliche prize, Paul Serge Forest is back with a deeply original and offbeat story that cements its author’s reputation. The writer, who drew inspiration from his own experience as a doctor during the COVID-19 pandemic, imagines a world in which a virus renders its victims expressionless, unable to form coherent sentences. While caregivers transform a Baie-Comeau motel into a hospital, profiteers set up a black market for punctuation marks that can create a strong addiction. Each page of Wear the mask unfolds as a delightful intellectual and sensory adventure. Candy!
VLB publisher, September 25
In Laurentia
Marie-Andrée Lamontagne
In the aftermath of the Second World War, thanks to the support of certain right-wing circles, French collaborators and militiamen fled their country and the consequences of their actions, finding refuge in a Quebec led by the conservative government of Maurice Duplessis, and ruled with an iron fist by the clergy. In Laurentia, Marie-Andrée Lamontagne intrudes into this small community, giving birth to larger-than-life characters whose destiny oscillates between tragedy and irony. Former director of the Livres du Dutythe novelist juggles between genres to offer an inspired, abundant and incisive story, in which poetry persists in finding its way.
Leméac, October 2
Ten days
Marie Laberge
In the ten days before the date set for her death, a woman keeps a diary in which she recounts the foundations of a life that is, after all, simple, but punctuated by the momentum of desires, impulses and loves that have caused it to deviate from its course. In a language evoking the urgency to live, Marie Laberge takes a lucid look at the truth, a great survivor of the inexorable flight of time. Forty years after the publication of his first novel, Some farewellsthe novelist and playwright delivers a brief and powerful story, carried by the emotions and the power of the connections that have defined her work.
Boreal, October 8
Day of clarity
Laurence La Palme
Among the most intriguing novels of this literary rentrée, we note that of Laurence La Palmean anonymous writer who, according to her publisher, has already published several books. The story’s summary is as shrouded in mystery as the identity of its author. In 1985, nineteen-year-old Viviane Leduc falls in love with Kostas Osmani, an Albanian refugee who is now a professor of Balkan literature at Concordia University. When he disappears, the young woman is drawn into a quest for counter-espionage and computer hacking that will take her from the nightclubs of Paris to the collapsed temples of Athens, to a decisive face-off in the Albanian countryside. All of this takes place against the backdrop of a “political chessboard that is both familiar and offbeat, surprisingly close to the disinformation wars of our time.” It’s promising.
The August Horse, October 15
The difficult features
Evelyne de La Chenelière
An important figure in contemporary dramaturgy, Evelyne de La Chenelière makes a first foray into fiction with this collection of short stories that borrows from the enchanting and unclassifiable language of fables. Here, the characters are devoured by an unspeakable anxiety, chasing invisibility in abandoned places, cracks in the sidewalk and the intoxicating patterns of crystal glasses. Holding up a sharp mirror to our contemporary ways of being in the world, the author evokes the fragility of connections and the impossibility of being oneself outside of oneself, thus continuing her exploration of “the impossible coincidence between human experience and speech.”
Red Herbs, October 25
Swimming
Andrée A. Michaud
Queen of agonizing psychological suspense and blood-curdling atmospheres, Andrée A. Michaud once again offers chills on a silver platter with this fourteenth novel that exploits the workings of nightmares. Through the aborted plans of Max, Laurence and Charlie, the novelist stages the terrible twists and turns of chance, while exploring in detail the inner turmoil of characters grappling with the unspeakable.
Quebec America, November 5
Madeleine and I
Marc Seguin
For almost a year and a half, the painter and writer Marc Seguin undertook a pilgrimage across Quebec, visiting places of worship that were still open to the public. There, he developed a great admiration for the artist Ozias Leduc, who immortalized several of these churches and chapels on his canvases, and especially for his Repentant Madeleine, the painter’s interpretation of this biblical figure often depicted over the centuries. Marc Séguin recounts here the creative bond that was forged between him and Leduc, thereby offering a poetic and precious incursion into the heart of his creative process—from impulses to reflections, including inspirations. A story that “touches the heart of art.”
Leméac, September 25
On the roads
Catherine Mavrikakis
This narrative nonfiction story, which will hit bookstore shelves just in time for the American elections, chronicles the journey across the United States undertaken by Catherine Mavrikakis in the summer of 2024. Following in the footsteps of road writers such as Jack Kerouac and Cormac McCarthy, she recounts the lunar landscapes and expanses worthy of the greatest westerns, the discussions exchanged between library shelves and at café counters, the disturbing encounters with a terrified and vulnerable population. With a critical eye borne of great erudition, the author shows an America entangled in the strangeness of its own myth.
Heliotrope, October 16
In my blood
Rebecca Makonnen
Rebecca Makonnen makes her literary debut with an autofiction that goes back to her origins. In conversation with her older sister or with those close to her, sifting through documents and memories, she reveals an improbable story woven with secrets, unspoken things and disturbing discoveries. The host of the shows Adding fuel to the fire And THE ambassadors offers, in the form of fragments that follow the disrupted flow of thoughts on the surface, a profound reflection on filiation. Enough to whet curiosity.
Free expression, October 9