The Beast has just given birth to an offspring, which borrows some features from it while freeing itself from them. Baptismal name : Maple, where a prostitute on probation becomes an investigator to stop the plans of a sadistic assassin. Polar served with Goudreault sauce and coated with his chiaroscuro writing, this “trashicomic” novel blows up dentures while embroidering in lace.
The beast, a widely acclaimed trilogy signed by the poet and social worker, still lies dormant within David Goudreault. But rather than reviving her for a ride in the wake of the previous ones, he prefers to convey her on new cross roads. Let’s clarify these nebulous words: Maple stages the homonymous character drawn from the same universe, where the marginalized prick themselves with poetry. Fresh out of prison, but out of prime freshness, this spinster gets it into her head to solve a series of heinous crimes bloodying the streets of Hochelaga, targeting victims who are closely or indirectly involved with the world of prostitution. Crank among the cranks, the killer ties his prey to the rope way shibari before forcing them to devour their own fingers.
At the same time as the police investigation, Maple scours the slums of the neighborhoods to get their hands on “the Trickster”, sifting through those she suspects of the crime: El’Chinois, who is keeping a low profile in his convenience store? The ambivalent transvestite Pierre Précieuse? Ti-Ness, compulsive gambler? Or downright Claude, his own stallion in love?
Polarizing
As the cards are knocked down and the knuckles are severed, the twists and turns follow one another, recounted with the same pen of the writer who had brushed the Beast — a style where vulgarity and elegance sleep in the same bed, like the skewer of raw and endearing characters served to us. David Goudreault, despite the painful process of writing, did not hide his pleasure in being able to let go of his madness (in every sense of the word) in this novel. “I had a real desire to reconnect with a free universe, completely stripped of the moral dictates of the time. I was looking forward to giving this gift to my readership. I had the impression that they were waiting for me somewhere in the same universe as the Beast,” confides the author.
On the other hand, it was very important to go a little elsewhere, to take on a female character with a strong and complex personality, and above all to go into thrillers.
David Goudreault
Indeed, the writer, confessing to being a thriller virgin, embarked on laborious and abundant preliminaries, while feeding on the big names in the genre; Georges Simenon, Agatha Christie, Guillaume Morrissette… “I really wanted to respect the codes of crime fiction, but in my own universe. There is an even greater mathematical relationship to literature in crime fiction, with a question of dosage and balance to make it all fluid,” he asks.
At the heart of its approach, positioning itself at the confluence of influences from several universes (sex work, police investigation, etc.), “while keeping a free hand to be in the fiction”.
Hit everything, especially yourself
Free rein gave birth to a raw language, and the author did not hesitate to stuff his playground with scenes without gloves or tweezers; but which, passed through the literary mill and adorned with poetically diverted colloquial expressions of which Goudreault has the secret, find themselves strangely adorned with an elegant varnish.
Maple is even capped with a humorous warning warning of the acidity of the thing. An extra that the author would have considered superfluous in the past, symptomatic of a change in atmosphere. “In recent years, in the Western literary and intellectual milieu, there have been new concerns. Some are essential, others seem exaggerated to me. I am very critical of the moral positions that actors and actresses in the literary world sometimes take, ”he says, specifying that he picks on everyone, including his own apple.
You have to hit those who have the power, and right now it’s about those who can censor, destroy careers, set the tone for what to say, think and believe. But it’s not relentlessness, I hit everyone.
David Goudreault
Maple introduces us to the world of prostitution, which, like the prison world, arouses a certain curiosity in the writer. “The world of crime has always interested me, it’s a moment in human life when the complexity of the psyche comes out. In sex work, there is something strong and vulnerable that intrigues me, how you can put yourself in danger all the time while maintaining control over your life and your body. I don’t pass judgment on it: the only time the word ‘bitch’ is used pejoratively is in relation to a man,” he says.
The Beast at rest
Will the Beast continue to produce offspring in the vein of Maple ? David Goudreault knows nothing about it and prefers not to think about it for the moment, despite the pleas of his readers who dream of a story this time devoted to Traumathys, another character born of the trilogy.
Besides, do not look for the author in any book fair, he will not set foot there, wishing to catch his breath a little. Moreover, even if he very much appreciated his participation in the show Good evening !, he recently resolved to put an end to this too energy-intensive public exhibition. “I had the violent realization that I didn’t want to be a public figure, but a writer who exists through his books. I had the impression that the more things went, the less people wanted to read me and the more people wanted to hear me. »
Rather, he will exclusively dedicate his neural capital to his literary performance project scheduled for 2024.
Maple
David Goudreault
Stanke
240 pages