Plessisthe first novel by Joël Bégin, was born from a historical anecdote that might seem trivial to anyone who does not have an unbridled imagination: Maurice Duplessis, known as “the chef”, former Premier of Quebec, father of the Great Darkness, notorious anti-unionist and anti-communist, died, struck down by a cerebral hemorrhage, in a rough-hewn wooden house on the shores of Knob Lake, in Schefferville.
“I don’t know why, I was fascinated by the fact that Duplessis died in this mining town, which was an economic jewel before practically disappearing, indicates the author. Maybe it’s because I come from Trois-Rivières, and the figure of the man overlooks the history of the city. Anyway, I started to read about him and the other political figures of the time, and I found everywhere bits of history, rumors to exploit. »
The writer – who is also a philosophy teacher at the Cégep de Trois-Rivières – began his writing in 2017, in this particularly fertile Trumpist era of fake news and political shenanigans. Natural, therefore, that Joël Bégin spontaneously began to imagine a dozen conspiracy theories, each more eccentric than the other, around the death of the old chief. “It’s like when you discover a new band, which becomes a prism through which you interpret the bands you listen to or the activities you do. Everything brought me back to this story. »
The final product – a dark and completely exploded story about a Great Darkness in agony – seduced the jury of the Robert-Cliche prize, awarded to the author of a first novel. “A dizzying scale, inventive and masterful writing, a strong recreation of society and history,” says writer Monique Proulx, who awarded him the prize along with Camille Toffoli and Samuel Archibald.
The Duplessis spider
Paul-Émile Gingras, a somewhat pathetic young policeman from Trois-Rivières, is given the task of shedding light on the attack that plunged Mr. Duplessis into a coma. Something fishy is going on in Schefferville. It is his great-uncle Jos-D., Minister of Colonization, who asks him to disentangle the true from the false. Accompanied by his friend, the journalist Gérald (Gégé) Godin, the young detective takes the road to the North Shore, plunged in spite of himself into the web of a hungry spider, connected to all the places of power in the province.
Thanks to this somewhat silly character, who has to have everything explained to him, the author can play his cards so that the reader never loses the north in this teeming hive of characters, intrigues and historical facts.
They are all there. Daniel Johnson, Paul Sauvé, Maurice Custeau, William Cottingham, John Bourque, Camille Pouliot and Antonio Talbot. Bishops, journalists, lawyers and police chiefs. All a little complicit, all a little tangled in the meshes of the net, all forced by force or greed to hide, to sow half-lies and contradictory information with the wind. And there is this Polish treasure, evacuated from the country in extremis to save it from German and Russian occupation, hidden somewhere in the National Museum of Quebec.
“What is most interesting in the biographies of politicians is not usually to be found in the apparatus and the political legacy, but rather in the first and last chapters, which deal with their childhood or their old age. . There are absurd and highly romantic treasures, like this story of Polish jewels hidden on the Plains. Even in a novel, it’s hard to believe it’s so absurd. »
All these incredible finds come together in a dizzying spiral in which we let ourselves be drawn, victims of a spell that is reminiscent of the one that grabs the followers of the lowlands of the conspiracy web.
Like a hyperactive puppeteer, the author weaves between genres and eras, moving from farce to historical fresco, from family drama to police investigation, from picaresque to realism, to form an offbeat universe, teeming with motifs and references, but solid and linear. “In literature, work on form really makes me trip. I am an admirer ofUlysses by James Joyce, which changes genre with each chapter. Far be it from me to want to compare myself, but it’s something I wanted to explore and push as far as possible. »
closer to us
Among the men of power, investigators and journalists, Joël Bégin wanted to make room for intriguing female characters, too often hidden from historical stories. “I wondered about the place that women could hold in a work on the 1950s in Quebec. There is a speech that stinks in my face that says it’s okay not to include women in a book about the First World War, for example, because they weren’t in the trenches. But by choosing this path, we deprive ourselves of a relevant point of view on History. Although their lives are not always rosy, I wanted my female characters to take charge of their destiny, to have an influence through their behind-the-scenes games. »
Although Joël Bégin is not tender towards Maurice Duplessis, his cronyism and his heritage, he gives him the opportunity, at the very end of the novel, to dive deep into his conscience and take stock of his actions, his desires and his political motivations. “Any political gesture is full of contradictions — one need only think of Steven Guilbeault [actuel ministre fédéral de l’Environnement]. I wanted to transpose that into the spirit of Duplessis, and show all the complexity of the character. Nowadays, he is more a myth than a man. I think bringing it closer to us allows us to appreciate a little more the democratic advances and the political system that we have since built, and which are often unloved. »