Anglo-Montreal author Sean Michaels rose to prominence with a charming debut novel, The conductive bodies (Giller Prize in 2014, translated into French by Alto in 2016), in which he was inspired by the life of the Russian inventor of the theremin, and where he already took a lot of freedom with reality. In The dice rolls, which arrives five years later and which is still admirably translated by Catherine Leroux, the author pushes even further his use of magical realism and the exploration between the possible and the dream, in a book both fast-paced and profound, filled with questions about fate and chance.
We follow Théo Potiris, son of a grocer and part-time humorist, who would like nothing to change while everything changes, and who will end up tempting fate in an existential and philosophical quest. Quest which will make him take several paths and digressions, which are not of equal interest it must be said, but which ends with a breathless pursuit in the Moroccan desert which is frankly worth the detour.
Funny and melancholy, The dice rolls takes place in large part in the Montreal district of Mile End and is a tribute to its fauna and its die-hard traders – Theo’s family’s Provision K is in a way the Supermarché PA -, but also in a ghostly and magnified Montreal, where exotic birds fly and where to walk by bike at night provides the most beautiful sensations.
We also meet a megalomaniac billionaire, a lone bestselling author, a relentless businesswoman, a former pole vault champion, a gang of thieves, a lucky and far-sighted teenager. But it is Theo’s gentle and ironic outlook on the world, with his piquant sense of observation and his interest in the people he meets, which is the binder of this multiple novel which sometimes gets lost in too many ways. ramifications, but which never loses sight of the sense of the marvelous. And that makes us want to believe it a little.
The dice rolls
Sean michaels
translated by Catherine Leroux
Alto
520 pages