Interested in the disturbing world of sects, the writer Marianne Brisebois has looked into the whole question of emancipation, the quest for freedom, and, ultimately, the quest for oneself to write As long as it’s summer, his third novel. It depicts with accuracy and a lot of emotion the story of Emma and Gabriel, two young people who flee their families enlisted in a sect and take off… heading east, towards Gaspésie.
Photo provided by Éditions Hurtubise
One fine day, two young adults, Emma and Gabriel, were fed up with the restrictions and isolation imposed by their family environment and chose to take to the open sea. Gabriel has a good idea of what the world is like outside of the sect. But Emma, totally cut off from the world for years, knows almost nothing about it.
At the seaside, a few kilometers from Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, two friendly innkeepers, Florence and William, welcome them. The young escapees begin their first summer of freedom, during which they will learn many wonderful and dizzying things.
The genesis of the novel is truly special. “It’s a story that started in my head when I was 14,” says the author in an interview.
“Near my aunt’s house, I knew there was a family that was part of a sect. I don’t want to go into too much detail and I don’t do that in the book either. She explains her approach. “For me, it’s not a book that’s based on a lot of cult-level research. It’s not a book that denounces that, or dissects that and shows how it works. For me, it’s really a pretext to talk about emancipation, to talk about freedom and to bring up themes that are universal. »
Marianne Brisebois recalls that her novel tells the story of two young people aged 19 and 21 who want to start their lives over.
“They were deprived of the world growing up in a cult. When we want to talk about emancipation… we start from very far. »
SELF DISCOVERY
“Readers will be able to recognize themselves through this because it’s about the search for oneself, identity, what we let go of in relation to our family heritage, in relation to the values in which we grew up, and what you want to find out about yourself. »
“In the book, we don’t go into the details of what was going on in the sect, but we have the broad outlines: control, manipulation, cutting oneself off from the outside, from culture, living just with the community, give your money to the community. »
“When I learned about this sect, I was very young. I knew that young girls did not even go to secondary school because they had to help their parents who had many children. But what happens when one of those kids grows up and says they don’t want to stay in there? When does he want to leave? »