“We made fun of people a bit like my father, who hadn’t had the chance to go to school for very long, who had become hockey players or coaches and who had ended their career on the radio with a microphone », revealed the author and host in an interview with The Sun, after a talk at the Maison de la culture in Rivière-du-Loup, to which he was invited on Sunday by the Françoise-Bédard Library. “They made lots of mistakes,” he continued. We took a clip from the radio and laughed at them repeatedly. Today, we could no longer do that!”
Jean-Philippe Pleau is thinking here of Gabriel Grégoire and Jacques Demers “who made slips of the tongue on both words”. If it was funny, the author now recognizes that they were “the product of our system.” “I no longer want to laugh at individuals, but I want to laugh at the society that makes this possible.”
He cannot forget the comments of certain people who reminded him how those he made fun of had big hearts. “They were sensitive and wounded beings. I would like to apologize sociologically to them.” If the host had to do it again The sports writerhe would feel like he was making fun of his father.
On the other hand, the sociologist recognizes that, both for himself and for Jean-Philippe Wauthier and Olivier Niquette. The sports writer “allowed them to exist.” He has lasting memories of this time when he learned to develop his sense of humor which now emerges quite naturally in his conferences and talks.
Significant encounters
If he no longer allows himself to laugh at poor and poorly educated people, Jean-Philippe Pleau perceives “an inequality which is reinforced by the system”. His heart and head loaded with all the emotions he had just experienced after touching encounters at the Rimouski Book Fair, the author of Rue Duplessis landed at Rivière-du-Loup, where some 80 people were waiting for him. Hosted by Stéphanie Robert, a painter from Cacouna and friend, the chat with the novelist born in Drummondville gave rise to exchanges and testimonies that were both unique and poignant.
He first recounted significant encounters he had made over the last two days at the Rimouski Book Fair, including that of Jacqueline, who was his neighbor across the street on Duplessis Street. He hadn’t seen her in 35 years. Ever since she read his book, she told him she wanted to beat him up. She asked him why he wrote this book.
“Our conversation lasted 20 minutes. She told me that she didn’t feel like she really knew my parents. She asked me if I had invented all this cultural, social and economic poverty that I name in the book, this violence, this anger, all the fears of my parents. She realized that my parents hid their poverty behind new cars, hid their fears because they were ashamed. Jacqueline said she now has a better understanding of my book and why I wrote it. She thanked me for daring to do it.” The exchange ended with a selfie, after which she told him she loved him.
Class Defector
Rather than writing this book, the class defector who grew up on Duplessis Street in Drummondville could have stuck to 15 years of therapy and his studies in sociology, he believes. “The effect would have been the same on me, that is to say that I would have freed myself from this shame, I would have gone from the shame of my origins to my shame of having been ashamed of my origins. I am a sociologist by training. So, I wanted to reach out one hand to the other. I have a word and I try to use it as best I can.” According to him, Quebec has a community of class defectors who ignore each other.
Through the violence as well as the sexist, racist and homophobic prejudices in which he grew up, the holder of a doctorate in sociology believes that his parents are “scholars of sensitivity”. “But, in their toolbox for managing their emotions, there was anger and a rusty nail.” To break the mold, the forty-year-old knew how to surround himself with sensitive people who have learned to manage their emotions. Among these, he often named the anthropologist Serge Bouchard, with whom he worked closely for 11 years, notably by co-hosting a radio show with him. The poetry of Pierre Perreault also taught him a lot.
“I sociologically excuse my father and the people from my background for having been angry, violent, homophobic, sexist, racist, because they are the product of our society,” he said. .
Moved to tears
The speaker was moved to tears more than once, notably by evoking the memory of the recently deceased sociologist Caroline Dawson, as well as by certain testimonies from the room. A tear streamed down his cheek when he heard the touching story of a teenager who told him that listening to his radio show calmed him. As an open book, the one who is in shared custody recounted, with courage, that he had the impression of being a class defector, in particular because he does not get enough attention from his father and because ‘he has too much at his mother’s house. His eyes red with emotion, Jean-Philippe Pleau preferred to speak to the young man in private after the talk.
From 3,000 to 53,000 copies of his book
The sociologist says he is happy and impressed by the success of his book. “I wrote this book in my office, telling myself that there would be 3,000 people who would read it and that it would be over,” he admitted in an interview with The Sun. The author was wrong. Of 3000 copies which were sold in four days, the novel Rue Duplessis is in reprint to increase to 53,000 copies.
Rue Duplessis will not stop with the publication of a book. “We are working on adaptation projects, particularly in the theater,” says the author. It will be announced shortly.”
