Kevin Lambert | Among the privileged of the world

What do billionaires think? How far are they willing to question their privileges? What influence does their power have on the social fabric? With May our joy remainhis highly anticipated third novel, Kevin Lambert surprises once again by changing register… and breaking the party ultra-rich. Masterful.

Kevin Lambert receives me in his old apartment in La Petite-Patrie, which has arches and whose walls are made of stucco, a style that was popular a long time ago. It was by observing the gentrification in his neighborhood that the idea of May our joy remainwhich makes us talk about our friends who were victims of evictions.

The story takes place in the world of architecture, around the dominant figure of the Montreal architect (fictitious) Céline Wachowski, celebrated all over the world, but who is not a prophet in his country.

This third novel is very different from his first two, and those who wanted to label him “sulphurous” or a “queer” writer will be surprised, because the style is more sober. But injustice, one of his favorite themes, is still there. “I didn’t feel obligated to write the same way,” he tells me as we walk through his neighborhood and show me examples of gentrification, including 305 rue de Bellechasse, bel building in full renovation, where are located the offices of Ateliers C/W directed by Céline Wachowski in the novel.

May our joy remain is probably one of the finest tributes to the late Marie-Claire Blais that I have read from a young author. It’s not so common in Quebec literature, this dialogue between writers of different generations. Kevin Lambert asserts that reading the great cycle Thirsty literally changed his life. Not only does a quotation from Blais at the beginning give the title to the novel, but two large party scenes with multiple characters recall the writer’s huge fresco.

“Rarely have I had such intense literary experiences,” he says of Blais’ work. That way she has of going through the thoughts of different characters and also the generosity with which she does it. Because the tramps like the big bourgeois have deep thoughts on the world, everyone has the right to speak. There is a criticism of inequalities, but which involves a radical equality of human beings at the base. For me, Thirsty is a masterpiece of literature. »

He also shares with Marie-Claire Blais a spectacular entry on the media scene. In just two novels, You’ll love what you killed and Roberval QuarrelKevin Lambert has established himself in Quebec and France, where he was a finalist for the Prix Médicis and Wepler, in addition to winning the Prix Sade in 2019. He is preparing the French release of May our joy remain for 2023.

Threat to the party

Quebec literature is very fond of the marginalized and the marginalized – Lambert too, in his first two novels. Few writers from here dare to approach the upper middle class, as Françoise Loranger did, for example, when it is fertile ground. While reading May our joy remainI thought of Among the happy people of the world by Edith Wharton. “I drew a lot of inspiration from this literature, from Virginia Woolf, which is an inspiration of Marie-Claire Blais, and from the films of James Ivory [A Room with a View] who represent the aristocracy. »

Kevin Lambert believes that among ordinary mortals that we are, the struggles are internal, while we forget too much those who dominate us. “These are people you don’t see often, they value invisibility, which is why they put large gates at the entrance to their land so that you don’t see them, precisely. And according to him, these growing inequalities constitute a serious social problem, as urgent as the climate crisis.

“With all the money that the people at the top of the pyramid have, we could solve so many social problems, make so many changes. Nobody should have that much money. »

If he denounces the social class of the super-rich, Kevin Lambert did not see, as a writer, the point of writing a novel by being only against it. That’s why he created with Céline Wachowski a character he could identify with. He thus depicts the middle of the rich through the prism of art and architecture that shape our cities, our behaviors and our tastes, through projects that involve politics, public funds and power relations.

Céline Wachowski, whom everyone admires and tears away, will see her star fade because of a devastating article in the New Yorker, as it prepares to offer Montreal a major project. She who has always seen herself as a builder and a leftist sees herself attacked by demonstrators – she consoles herself by reading Proust and fomenting her revenge. “He is someone who is aware of the chic side that the radical left can have,” he explains. But she’s clearly not a Marxist. It is because she considers herself on the left that it is so difficult for her to understand the criticisms leveled at her. »

All the strength of the novel, which contains a real suspense, rests on the ambiguity, because Céline inspires as much compassion as exasperation. There are incredible diatribes about a plutocratic, small-thinking and visionless Quebec in there, and all the possible arguments of meritocracy are launched. We sometimes agree with Céline and, at other times, we find her cruel and completely disconnected from the real world. This shows how much capitalism disturbs our thinking and how much talent Kevin Lambert has.

“What we often ask of these people is to question their privileges, specifies the writer. And I wondered, while writing, if there are limits to which an individual can go in a questioning of his privileges which placed him above the world and what he built. Often, I find that in these journeys of personal success, very wealthy and very privileged people erase what comes from society in their success. They don’t always see the interdependent relationship they are in, they think it’s just other people depending on them, because they have a lot of money, when very often they get a lot of grants and they studied at state-funded universities. »

Basically, it does not take much to destabilize an elite that believes it deserves its position: the simple challenge of this position is a threat. And in a world where tensions are increasingly exacerbated by inequalities that reach an unprecedented level of indecency, joy has become something fragile, contaminated by worry. The end of the party never seems far away.

Kevin Lambert reminds me that there was always a threat hanging over the parties in Marie-Claire Blais’ novels. “Sociologists like Pinçon-Charlot have said that if in Third World countries the rich put walls and armed guards around their houses, there is in Europe the same system of defense around wealth, except that it is symbolic. It is our value system that builds social classes, what we associate with beauty, good taste, which serves as a wall between the rich and the poor. I think the rich are right to be afraid today. »

May our joy remain

Kevin Lambert

Heliotrope

380 pages
In bookstores September 7