How is it written
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The fourth novel for the 2023 Medici Prize sees two children caught up in the misadventures of a video game hero who comes to “haunt their reality”.
Snow trails (which trails “risk collapsing at any time”) is at once a Christmas (and New Year) tale, a children’s book and a grammatical adventure in which pronouns are the hidden heroes. And it’s the new novel by Kev (formerly Kevin) Lambert, born in Quebec in 1992 and winner of the Prix Médicis last year with May our joy remain. To begin with, this is the story of Zoey who went out into the cold on December 23, 2004, “mittens full of runny noses”, and has a single-digit age, like his cousin Emie-Anne with whom he will share the lead in the narration. There is a family party for Christmas, which is not original in itself, but the novel in which Zoey’s adventures are initially told more or less in an indirect style also sees the «il» transform into «elle» then this «elle» in «il»the “is” evaporate for a time and the “We” to become synonymous with a little more than osmosis, while the «on»an impersonal pronoun if ever there was one, wins its very personal crown. The cousin is caught up in the misadventures of a video game hero that they have, of their own free will and a little in spite of themselves, qua
