FAIS DE BEAUX RÊVES

Je croyais avoir tout prévu. Le lymphome, la mort subite, l'accident de voiture, la chute du quatrième étage, l'étouffement, la noyade, un kidnapping, une maladie orpheline dont tu aurais été la première victime, un cambriolage qui tourne mal, un chien agressif, un cerf-volant coincé dans un fil électrique, un ballon lancé au milieu de la rue. Je nous plongeais sciemment dans des situations impossibles, les guerres que je créais dans ma tête étaient intentionnelles.

When a child is born, a monstrous, unthinkable idea is born alongside it: the baby could die. The narrator of this novel plays with the taboo, turning it over in her hands to examine every facet, like a talisman that gives its keeper power over death. It is a prism through which she examines every aspect of her life with merciless lucidity: woman, mother, writer, lover, girl. Imagining her child's demise reaffirms her daily commitment to him, and losing him has become a way to walk, a way of loving him. This is the story of a young woman who struggles relentlessly against the forces of darkness. The violence that inhabits her, the fear of passing on the destructive impulse handed down for generations. Her quest is captured in searing prose that makes us touch and feel the things that we are always trying to hide from ourselves. A remarkably assured first novel. “I will not be what history wants me to be.”
« Je croyais avoir tout prévu. Le lymphome, la mort subite, l'accident de voiture, la chute du quatrième étage, l'étouffement, la noyade, un kidnapping, une maladie orpheline dont tu aurais été la première victime, un cambriolage qui tourne mal, un chien agressif, un cerf-volant coincé dans un fil électrique, un ballon lancé au milieu de la rue. Je nous plongeais sciemment dans des situations impossibles, les guerres que je créais dans ma tête étaient intentionnelles. »

Virginie Chaloux-Gendron lives in Quebec. She wrote a collection of poems, Cerises de terre (2019), noticed by the critics. She completed a Master's degree in Literature with a thesis on Thomas Bernhard. The issues of vulnerability and shame are at the heart of his writing. Fais de beaux rêves is her first novel.

“Balancing between fiction and reality, Virginie Chaloux-Gendron signs a first novel that grabs us from the first pages. The violence of words is matched only by this mother's love for her child.” Le Devoir
“Chaloux-Gendron, who already has a collection of poems to her credit, attracts attention with this first novel. Imagine the end so as not to lose your life.” La Presse
“There is something deeply disturbing, which expresses what is stirred in the shadows, but cannot be said without suffering the stigma. A first novel tackling the theme of motherhood with burning and swirling writing.” La Presse+