The historical novel, the ultimate comfort

The book was undoubtedly one of the big winners of the pandemic, as Quebecers began to read like never before. However, one sub-genre stood out in Quebec literature: once again this year, the historical novel, whose sales were already doing very well, hit new records. We tried to understand what explains this craze.

Laila Maalouf
Press

While Quebec was confined, last year, the author Suzanne Aubry, who is also president of the Union of writers and writers Quebec (UNEQ) and screenwriter, plunged back into her series Fanette, which she closed in 2014 with her seventh volume.

“I wanted to escape”, she confides, looking back on what pushed her to return to the 19th century.^e century to continue Fanette’s story, rather than continue along the path of the contemporary novel. After a first part published in March 2021, this sequel will finally have three volumes, the second of which is scheduled for February and the last for the end of 2022. “Like me, I wanted to escape the dark aspect of the pandemic by plunging me back into the XIX^e century, I think that readers like to look back in time to forget the present. There is a need for escape. And then the nostalgic aspect also plays a role, that’s for sure, ”explains Suzanne Aubry.

According to data recorded in Gaspard by BTLF (the French-language title management company), sales of Quebec historical novels were up 25%, as of November, after having experienced a dazzling increase of 45% in 2020, clearly exceeding other subgenres.

“There are several researchers who have shown, through various surveys or polls, that reading popular literature is governed first and foremost by research on security,” said Marie-Pier Luneau, professor of literature at the University of Sherbrooke. And it is certain that during the pandemic, this security is really found in the content of historical Quebec novels. The famous happy end … no matter what the adventures the characters go through, we know in advance that it will end well. ”

Marie-Pier Luneau gives the example of The Caron pension, a series by Jean-Pierre Charland (published by Hurtubise), the first volume of which takes place during the crisis following the Great Depression, in Montreal. “We don’t see the misery. We know that the characters have more difficulty making ends meet, but we will not go far in the problematization of social issues, ”she explains.

For Jean Paré, managing director of Guy Saint-Jean Éditeur, which publishes among other things the novels of Louise Tremblay d’Essiambre, the dazzling success of the historical novel since the start of the pandemic is not at all surprising. “The historical novel, I often compare it to a good comforting casserole dish in the fall. It’s a bit cliché, but it is sure that if things are not going well in my life, if I am worried, the return to Quebec of the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s … to the way we lived in the century last, right here, in villages that we know or in invented villages, it’s very comforting and reassuring, ”he says.

A loyal readership

Very prolific, the authors of historical novels are among those who attract the largest crowds in the book fairs of the province, succeeding in retaining their readership through series that span several decades, declined in a good number of volumes. They excel all the more in establishing a close relationship with their readers, underlines Marie-Pier Luneau, who recalls that at the beginning of Place des Érables (published last March by Guy Saint-Jean Éditeur), Louise Tremblay d’Essiambre addresses readers directly in a note to tell them how she is experiencing the pandemic. “I think that it plays a lot in the popularity of these books,” analyzes the professor.

With very strong female characters – contrary to the reality of the time – and images that evoke, from the cover, a comforting imagination – like this magical winter represented by the illustration of Place des Érables –, the reader is lulled by this return to the “good old days”, she adds, in addition to leaving the current debates of society for “a universe where nothing will happen that will go wrong”.

The Quebec book, reader’s favorite

Through this craze for the historical novel, the actors of the book industry above all note a persistent enthusiasm for local literature. “For two years now, Quebec books have really become the darling of bookstore readers in all categories. […] People who went before to foreign historical literature turned to Quebec historical literature, ”says Floriane Claveau, director of communications at Renaud-Bray.

The Gaspard report for the year 2020, which however excludes the figures of large chains such as Renaud-Bray and Archambault, also reveals that among the 15 best-selling titles in the historical novel category last year, only the first was foreign (Twilight and dawn, by Ken Follett); Quebec publishers have thus captured 72% of the market share.

Booksellers have done great business in recent quarters and are delighted to see that customers always leave with batteries “as if we were going to refine ourselves”, notes Audrey Martel, co-owner of the bookstore L’Exèdre, in Trois- Rivers.

“I think reading itself is something that is immutable and comfortable, that allows you to be part of a whole,” she suggests. Even when we were at the height of confinement, when we were alone at home, knowing that we are reading the book that everyone is reading, that we have heard about on social networks or in the newspapers, it allows you to be part of a community. It invites discussion, even if [la lecture], it is something that is lonely. The book has not changed for 2000 years; it’s reassuring, too, when the world is falling apart. ”