Kev Lambert approaches literature as others undertake an experiment or a research project, drawing on the work of his predecessors to put forward hypotheses, set objectives, bring together ambivalences and deploy the full potential of an idea .
This scientific approach could lead to a dry and inaccessible result. However, this is not the case. The writer from Lac-Saint-Jean plunges with the sensitivity of an artist into the inner life of his characters, delivering human portraits which involve, when reading, both the heart and the mind.
This has never been more true than in Snow trailshis fourth novel, in which he explores the imagination and the dizzying emotional roller coasters that characterize childhood.
There we meet Zoey, an 8-year-old who sees his Christmas vacation overshadowed by the recent separation of his parents. In the company of his favorite cousin, Émie-Anne, the child flees this family from which he feels so foreign to embark on the disturbing and exalted paths of the imagination, sheltered from codes, norms and constraints imposed by the adult world.
Hand in hand, the two kids will set off in pursuit of a masked and frightening creature who will lead them into a maze of dangers, perilous challenges and questions, to meet their subconscious.
Storytelling the trauma
It is first of all a reflection on trauma in literature which gave birth to this magical and mysterious story, but anchored in the Saguenay of the early 2000s.
“In literature, we often attach the trauma to the fragment. This is normal, because it is a form that allows us to work on things that escape us, that resist speech. The fragment allows you to approach it while respecting the resistance. However, in recent years, I have immersed myself in the work of Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen King, two writers who manage to put trauma into narrative; that is to say, to include it in a history, an evolution or a human adventure. I wanted to try this storytelling, which actually resembles the work we do in therapy, in psychoanalysis in particular. I thought they were great problems for literature. »
Thus, as his characters go deeper into the woods, and into their inner world, they are confronted with what is gnawing at them, with what is likely to break them, and which they have buried deep in their memory. . For Émie-Anne, a young girl of Chinese origin adopted by a Quebec couple, it is this difference that is always thrown in her face. For Zoey, there is this memory of great violence, which should not be divulged, but also these expectations which weigh on his fluid identity, in an environment where everyone sees him as a boy.
An identity under construction
Kev Lambert brilliantly borrows the directions and forms of the child’s psyche, both in the different levels of language and in the narrative construction, diving head-on into tempestuous emotions and looks devoid of naivety, to which adults give little thought. importance, but which still contain their share of truths about the world.
The author makes the judicious choice of an age where identity is in flux, lost somewhere between the projections of others and self-discovery; choice which is reflected even in the form of the story. At times, Zoey’s perception of himself changes, and is transposed into his way of telling and naming himself, moving alternately from “he” to “she”, giving himself the right, in this universe that he was built, to exist fully.
“I wanted to show what can happen when there is not an overlooking gaze – an adult gaze – which is watching, and which in some way represents social norms, including gender norms. But I didn’t necessarily want to put it into words, define it as non-binary or transidentity. Rather, I wanted the reader to share the experience. »
Kev Lambert – who chose for this fourth novel to change his pen name, and to shorten the Kevin by which we knew him until then – has in some way put his own experience on paper, he who has also begun a transition. “Kev is my name, since everyone calls me that, but in a more androgynous form. I don’t necessarily experience my transition as a move from one gender to another — I never fit the gender I was seen in anyway — and there is something too binary for me about change. by name. Our stories, our social norms do not correspond to experience in all its richness. Beneath a pronoun, a designation lies a multitude impossible to grasp, which cannot designate an existential truth about what I am. »
The imagination of video games
Through his novels, the writer often pays homage to the authors he admires. Roberval Quarrel (Héliotrope, 2018) was a direct reference to Brest Quarrel by Jean Genet, while May our joy remain (Héliotrope, 2022), for which he won the Médicis Prize, was inspired in substance and form by the work of Marie-Claire Blais.
For Snow trailsKev Lambert has rather immersed himself in the world of gaming Zelda to develop his story. “I find that the literature has not talked much about video games. For me, they have taken a central place in my life and my imagination. I wanted to place them on the same level as the literary influences that are displayed in my previous works. »
The novelist uses a masked character – Skull Kid – encountered by fans of the series Zelda in the game Majora’s Maskto achieve its ends. The latter is at the heart of the quest undertaken by the two protagonists of his story. “I needed to find a way to embody what resists speech in the story, so that the unfigurable becomes a character in itself. In addition, on an architectural level, the universe of Zelda is still constructed as a truly scary descent, which directs the player towards a creature they don’t know. I found this downward movement ideal for building the inner life of my characters. »
We bet that Kev Lambert will convince many to abandon their screens, for the time to dive into a story that is as mysterious as it is poignant.