Medici Prize, December Prize and Ringuet Prize for his novel May our joy remainthe talented Kev Lambert is publishing this fall Snow trailshis fourth novel. This intimate novel describes Zoey’s first Christmas since her parents separated. The sensitive and very imaginative boy spends the holidays between his father’s family and that of his mother and happily reunites with his favorite cousin, Émie-Anne. During their walks in the forest or family reunions in Lac-Saint-Jean, they experience extraordinary adventures.
Kev Lambert’s new novel, Snow Trails, will be in bookstores on October 2, 2024.
© Éditions Héliotrope
So it’s the first Christmas, the first holiday season since the separation. For shared custody, Zoey’s parents made a schedule. He will be with his father, in Lac-Saint-Jean, for December 24, and with his mother thereafter.
Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Zoey spends a lot of time with her favorite cousin, Émie-Anne. On the fringes of the adult world, they will experience extraordinary adventures in a forest populated by monsters and frightening creatures who watch over their every move.
Kev Lambert dives straight into the very rich, spontaneous and grandiose world of childhood during the holiday season in this fascinating new novel, peppered with vivid memories of his own childhood and his school environment. Tasty dialogues between family members follow one another: they discuss, argue, seek to have the last word in the kitchen or in the living room, while drinking beer. With local speaking.
Zoey and Émie-Anne, in the whirlwind of the Holidays where time seems to stand still, are grappling with relatives, a goblin who emerges from the bathroom, an uncle who swears in front of the children, and a number of extraordinary things. The result is funny, both realistic and crazy, original, both personal and universal.
The power of imagination
“I wanted to talk about childhood, the violence of being a child. About how adults don’t listen to children, how there is a form of rejection of the children’s world by the adult world. How, among themselves, children can be tough,” says Kev Lambert, in an interview.
“But I also wanted to talk about the power of the imagination, about the way in which these two children, the cousin, find a sort of refuge in their games, in their delusions, in their reading, in all that.”
Inspired by his childhood
What he writes is inspired by his childhood, even if it is not biographical, he adds. “There are a lot of elements that are similar to my life. The family that is described resembles one side of my family. I look like Zoey’s character. The school he goes to is the school I went to.”
In some passages, extraordinary creatures appear. “It appears in the novel, a bit like a surprising and mysterious apparition. At the beginning, it wasn’t necessarily in my plan and I hadn’t expected to go this far into the world of imagination.”
No stress, no pressure
Kev Lambert, moreover, says that he was detached from any form of pressure to perform when writing this novel because he had started writing it before receiving the literary prizes for May our joy remain.
“I just kept going and it went well. Anyway, I don’t think about that too much: we always start from scratch, despite everything. Price is not going to write the book for you.”
“It’s a very different project from the previous one. I need to transform myself with each book and I think that it also allows me to avoid stress, anxiety and expectations.
Snow trails
Kev Lambert
Éditions Héliotrope
416 pages
▶ In bookstores October 2.
- Kev Lambert received the Médicis Prize, the December Prize and the Ringuet Prize for his novel May our joy remain.
“It’s time for grandma to take back control of what started without her. Her daughters-in-law don’t know how to roll the appetizers which all fall apart, they don’t know how to heat the pies and meat pies. Without announcing herself, Mamie takes Sylvie’s place by ordering her to take the pie out of the oven.
“A will continue to cook with the lid on. If we don’t take it out, it’ll be dry.”
– My mother never did that, take out the pie before its time.”
Sylvie doesn’t feel like being worked on by her mother-in-law. She invokes the rivalry of mothers, an Egyptian force, to confront the power of Mamie who responds most naturally: “We’re not at your mother’s house. We are at home.” »
– Kev Lambert, Snow trailsÉditions Héliotrope
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