In Val Grégoire, a (fictitious) village on the Haute-Côte-Nord, life is not good, and yet we enter, not without pleasure, into this universe populated by eccentrics, degenerates and sweet lunatics thanks to the truculence with which the narrators depict the misfortunes which fall down from generation to generation on theirs.
“In no time, our fathers, former employees of the old mill, passed from the hope of recovery to end-of-life alcoholism; our mothers, former housewives, from playful housewives to cashiers at Dunkin’ Donuts in brown-beige uniforms; and us, former overprotected toddlers, from rotten spoiled children to children of female dogs. »
Thick choral story told out of order, female dog kidssecond novel by Nicolas Delisle-L’Heureux (The cobblestones in the pondFrom the Full Moon, 2013), focuses on three childhood friends, Louise Fowley, Marco Desfossés and Laurence Calvette, whom a cruel fate, even a curse, will separate.
“It was undeniably her, Louise, the leader of their trio, the little spark that made them seem more numerous than they were. They put their feet in the dishes laughing, then licked their toes. She was often asked, “Why not girls your age, Louise?” Because: boy, girl or filly, no one would have been up to them, all three. »
It is when reaching adolescence that everything begins to go wrong for the trio. Like several girls in the village, Louise was raped and became pregnant at age 13. This drama, however, brings her a semblance of freedom since she has to leave Val Grégoire, from which there is no escape according to an old legend. Partially complicit in this rape, Marco, decked out like his older brothers with family flaws, is condemned to a life of misery and violence. Too gentle for this world where everything seems dirty, sticky with blood or in a state of putrefaction, Laurence, younger brother of the brutal Willy and the “not quick-quick” Wendy, dreams of escaping with his two friends.
Accompanied by adult Louise, who has returned to Val Grégoire to wreak terrible revenge, the reader will be invited to go back in time and discover the truth about what happened. Certainly, Nicolas Delisle-L’Heureux knows how to preserve the mystery by jumping from one era to another, from one place to another, from one character to another, while delivering detailed descriptions where sometimes point to benevolence, sometimes to contempt. Would the author look down on his characters?
With a despairing determinism, topped with a strong dose of black humor which risks trivializing at any time the tragedies which accumulate, especially those which strike the female characters, the story ends up causing unease. Indulging in places in an overuse of adverbs, the novelist delights so much in misery that one would like to leave the novel before the end. “It’s true that there is nothing to do in Val-Mouroir. Me, I’m full of my helmet, and one day, I’m going to squeal my camp. We deserve better than that. »