The only surviving member of the group Les BB, Alain Lapointe, collaborated closely with The crazy adventure of the BBs, fictionalized biography signed by the author Nathalie Roy. We say “fictionalized biography”, because the youth of Patrick Bourgeois, François Jean and Alain Lapointe and the rise of the successful trio that they will form at the turn of the 1990s are told in a form very close to the novel: a series of scenes energized by numerous reconstructions of dialogues.
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This choice is completely assumed by the author, who admits in a note placed at the end of the book to have also taken “certain liberties with the dates and the places”. It does, however, feel like a watered-down version of the story of a band that wasn’t known for its fondness for chamomile teas. The flirtation with drugs (cocaine, in particular) is quickly evoked in the first part of the book until a chapter with the title which raises eyebrows: “We avoided the hell of drugs”.
The assertion is contrary to what the drummer François Jean experienced and said openly: he used BBs at the time. Sometimes a lot. This passage highlights the lies and half-truths that have helped to forge and maintain the group’s image over the years – and that the author recounts, without dwelling on them too much. The adventure of the BBs was indeed crazy, and recalls a time when the music video was king and where Quebec song began to regain momentum after the long post-referendum depression.
This story, although endowed with a good breath, maintains in its very form a doubt that it never manages to completely dissipate: did things really happen like that?
The crazy adventure of the BBs
Nathalie Roy
Quebec America
320 pages