There are these literary works that we must let penetrate into us before measuring their full beauty. The mountain star, Judy Quinn’s recent novel, is certainly one of these.
With precise descriptions, thanks to which we are transported into its setting that is both enchanting and hostile, the book traces the migratory journey of Irene and Mia. After a storm, the two accomplices, the woman and the child, discover by chance the mountain star, a seemingly mystical place. What follows is a story of unsuspected violence, whose jerky dialogues and fascinatingly accurate paintings hypnotize… to the point of making it impossible to stop turning the pages. The one who won the Robert-Cliche prize in 2012 with Hunter let himself sink holds the secret of a poetry that makes visible the places and bodies encountered. Despite all the vagueness around the situation in which the protagonists find themselves, the wonderfully strange atmosphere convinces us to let ourselves be guided by the pen of Judy Quinn. And despite the absence of spatiotemporal markers, we know that the writer wants us to feel all the harshness of being uprooted, without knowing where or when we will arrive, skilfully echoing the migrant crisis.
The mountain star
Leméac
176 pages