The version that interests no one | The novel that should interest everyone

Remember this name. Above all, remember this pen: Emmanuelle Pierrot is publishing these days a first novel as intimate as it is violent, in a rant, which should leave no one indifferent. We met her.

The version that interests no one, a brick published in Quartanier, should interest everyone, in fact. As proof: we had to elbow our way (nicely, anyway!), at the newspaper, to meet its author. For what ? Because this first text spanks, solidly too. It’s strong, devilishly well put together, anchored in a little-known universe. And the words are moving. The kind of novel that we read in one go, which tightens our guts when we inevitably turn its last page.

Point of light here at the end of the tunnel. And the author doesn’t hide it: “I didn’t want to comfort the reader in relation to the horrible world in which we live, it’s legitimate to say that”, she lets out gently in an interview.

In summary, if it is possible to summarize more than 350 pages of such a dense story, let’s say that the book tells the life of Sacha and Tom, two best friends, who one day go to see if they are there in the Yukon. They land on the go and by chance in Dawson City, a very small mining town, in a community of nomadic folk punk misfits, depicted here with bewitching detail.

Everything is going well (think: sex, drugs and festivals, among other things and on repeat), until nothing is going well at all. Basically: Sacha feels free, lives fully, to the fullest, until this freedom turns against her. The tide is turning, and badly, to boot.

“One day, the village no longer wanted me. He grabbed me, crushed me, and spat me out. I was almost dead, and so easy to kill,” she writes as a prologue.

For what ? Without revealing everything:

It is therefore a story of unnamed violence of rejection, or “slut shaming” as we say in English, above all of misogyny, without these words being (unless I am mistaken) once uttered. Who feels (sorry: screams) the fact experienced, so detailed are the details and the point is felt.

Painful therapy

With her rebellious look and her rebellious demeanor, we expected to meet a tough girl. After all, Emmanuelle Pierrot is not 30 years old and she has lived on the street. His pen is not lacy either. “Now I’m going to speak, and one day I’m going to die but, in the meantime, I won’t keep my bitch mouth shut,” she continues, still as a prologue.

Now we find ourselves in front of a rather shy young woman, looking for the right word, with a disarming gentleness, to whom we just want to ask: but how are you? (and to hug her, but we held back, who knows why).

“I’m fine,” she said immediately, smiling. Lots of fun things happen to me in life, it’s great! » It must be said that after having done a term at Concordia University in cinema, then “wandered” by choice and with great joy, she would like to point out, known the Yukon – yes, like her character and “alter ego » Sacha, she makes no secret of it – the young woman is doing a series of interviews today and is pinching herself at the interest shown in her. “I doubted anyone would be interested, hence the title!” »

It first “came out” in the form of poetry, upon his return to Quebec, after the pandemic, during his nights of powerful insomnia. And then Emmanuelle Pierrot realized that her prose cleverly avoided touching “what hurts the most”, she confides, moving from “she” (Sacha) to “I” in spite of herself. Just like us, it should be noted.

“I was talking about pain without having a narrative. » Her editor told her outright: “we want to know the real story,” she paraphrases. “So I went to the end and we said everything. » But no, it wasn’t therapeutic: “Writing once, perhaps, but writing once and re-reading it every week is almost masochistic! […] I don’t recommend this to anyone! […] This is the most painful way to do therapy! »

The story is violent, confirms Emmanuelle Pierrot. “I receive a lot of feedback from those close to me and I have noticed that it affects men more than women,” she notes. I think women already know that misogyny exists, they are less viscerally affected by it. In my small sample, my boyfriend, my father and some other people had to stop reading because they found it too violent. »

Why did you go there? If the statement could be akin to a settling of scores, she quickly denies it. “I wanted to give voice to Sacha’s version,” retorts Emmanuelle Pierrot. Because I think that in life, it’s a version that is often ignored. »

Note that the text is far from being as explicit, but rather plays on the character’s experiences and feelings: “one of the most difficult things to do was not to name the fashionable words in the book , specifies the author. This is not a test. […] The character of Sacha does not consider herself a feminist, she does not understand […] misogyny. She perpetuates it herself. […] She doesn’t see that misogyny is a thing in Canada. » Until she becomes the “perfect victim”, as they say.

In her novel, Emmanuelle Pierrot, who loves Richard Brautigan (Trout fishing in America), icon of the counterculture of the 1960s (but also of Virginie Despentes, it was to be expected), uses without abuse some clever stylistic devices, with a hint of surrealism here, a slight distortion of reality there , winks that she promises to multiply in her next projects, on which she is already working, moreover. Notice to interested parties.

Otherwise, no, Emmanuelle Pierrot definitely does not conclude on a note of hope. Are there any still in this world? “I don’t know where the hope is. But there is love and beauty in the book and in the narrative gesture, she believes. There is also a form of redemption: Sacha speaks…” We bet she will do it again.

The version that interests no one

Emmanuelle Pierrot

The Quartier

358 pages