[Critique] «Nathan», Marie-Eve Nadeau | The duty

“The head tilted slightly forward […] He gazes into the amber liquid streaked with miniature ripples, takes a sip, half closes his eyes, inhales the scents of spices and lime that pass and disappear. He drifts” Based in Pètavi, Haiti, for more than 50 years, Nathan, an American anthropologist, feeds his days with rum, an elixir that allows him to “float on the surface”, to “receive or repel the world that surrounds”. But when Lola lands on the island, the old man traces the milestones of his story, recounts himself with ardor. First novel for documentary filmmaker, actress and filmmaker Marie-Eve Nadeau, Nathan is above all an ode to this country of heat, of coups d’etat, of human relations as rich as they are tortuous. Presented in nine chapters, like so many lives lived by the hero, the story is told in a disorder sometimes perhaps difficult to follow, but which acutely reflects the marginality of this whole and uncompromising character.

Nathan

★★★ 1/2

Marie-Eve Nadeau, Hands Free, Montreal, 2023, 228 pages

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