Anthony Lacroix, five feet and one inch, early twenties, is writing a master’s degree in geocriticism at the University of Quebec in Rimouski. In this poetic story in free verse, he dissects the hundred gym sessions necessary to pass the hundred and twenty-eight hours and six minutes of listening to the seven volumes ofIn Search of Lost Time in audiobook. In this interval, he promises to write every day in order to make the initial submission of his memoir at the very moment when the reader pronounces the last sentence of Marcel Proust’s work. Throughout the pages, the reflections of the narrator of The research on literature and memory are linked to the awareness of the character of Anthony Lacroix, who experiences a form of solitude which pushes him to reevaluate his choices and his obsessions, as well as his relationship to time and performance. Carried by the evocative and biting pen of the writer, Proust at the gym talks as much about the pitfalls involved in working on oneself or creating a work as about the sometimes superhuman mental strengths and constraints that creative genius requires. Funny and original.
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