“I’m just waiting to be told that I don’t know my classics, to be pointed out something obvious that I don’t know exists,” says Julien Beaupré about the representation of his native region, Témiscamingue, in Quebec literature. “In any case, I haven’t often seen the name Ville-Marie in a book. »
Published at 7:00 a.m.
The formula is worn, but inevitable here: it is the Témiscamingue who is the main character of Coconadethe first novel by Julien Beaupré, 31, who was born in Ville-Marie, the most populous municipality in Témiscamingue, despite its approximately 2,500 inhabitants.
“The first time I read/an adequate description of my native village/was in To Fish by Albert Camus”, he writes in the first pages, the kind of absurd links which abound in this “youthful autofiction on the author’s relationship with his place of departure”, says the main interested party. An autofiction in which Témis is portrayed with as much harshness as affection.
Written entirely in verse, Coconade is one of the most brilliantly funny books published in Quebec for a very long time, a dosage in which its author invested a lot of energy, so that it could be read by his literary friends, “but also,” he adds, by [ses] friends from Témis who do not devote their lives to literature.” “I wanted everyone to be able to have fun. »
“My book does not deal with a very serious subject and I wanted to keep potential heaviness at bay using humor,” explains this CEGEP teacher, who now lives in Lac-Supérieur with his lover. , doctor.
But it was also a challenge to stay in the literary field. I was afraid for a long time that I had written a joke book.
Julien Beaupré
A fear that he can chase away, as this story of a teenager who fears volcanoes, who accompanies his mother to the supermarket in the neighboring Ontario town and who saves his little brother from drowning (like) is first and foremost overflowing with tenderness and erudition, both poorly camouflaged under several layers of beautiful delusions.
For Julien Beaupré, the American writer Kurt Vonnegut was a model. “There is something very intelligent, very humanist in his work, at the same time as an uncompromising critique of his society. Then he is capable of crushing you to the ground with the stroke of a pen. It makes you laugh, it hurts, but it comforts at the same time. »
The same could be said of Coconade.
Coconade
Julien Beaupré
House on Fire editions
280 pages
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