“Éloïse had thrown her father into the well. […] Its pebbles also didn’t reach the body of the monster hiding there, which made Lo more and more furious each time. So begins the story of Éloïse, known as Lo, like Nabokov’s Lolita, the bewitching heroine of this second novel by Manon Louisa Auger. After being inspired by the world of Emily Brontë for Year or Emilie’s Book (Leméac, 2019), the author draws on that of Anne Hébert to sign this novel set in the Quebec of the Great Depression. Evoking the red-haired orphan of Lucy Maud Montgomery, treated as a witch by her sick grandfather, the mischievous young girl whom her mother and her new innkeeper stepfather tear from her beloved forest likes to twist reality to counter the fate reserved for girls of his condition. Vibrant praise of the imagination and virulent criticism of patriarchy, Eloise or the violin turns out to be a novel of dark and sulphurous beauty reminiscent of the most cruel children’s tales.
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