Patrick Nicol

The Events

Les manifestations

January 16, 2020
Novel
448 pages
140 × 205 mm
21 €
9782896984534
978-2-8969-8453-4

Collection « série QR »

Patrick Nicol, The Events
Patrick Nicol, The Events

A polyphonic novel about the invisible forces that shape our lives, about the spirits of the dead and the traces that the living struggle to leave, The Events is the work of a writer haunted by the ghosts of history and the forgotten of the present.

Dying Lucy is lying in a hospital bed, the internet gives her forty days to live. Little Ophelia thinks of nothing else but her own illness and the medicine she buys for the boys at her school. Her mother, Sarah, has a new lover, a kind of silent, magical monster who hides a mystery, or perhaps nothing. Paul is going to lose everything: his girlfriend, his daughter and even his mother, who will soon no longer recognize him. Between the Historical and Genealogical Society where he works without conviction, the old people’s home where his mother is attached and the family home where no one needs him anymore, he wonders what he could be used for or, failing that, interested in. Why are our lives so disappointing, so devoid of scope? Victor Hugo dialogued with the spirit of Shakespeare, André Breton unearthed treasures from his unconscious, Marcel Duchamp transformed his life into a work of art... Why are these greatnesses no longer within our reach? The whim of an unknown man from Europe seems to be the only possible adventure.

The author

Patrick Nicol was born in 1964 and lives in Sherbrooke, Quebec. He is the author of several books, including La nageuse au milieu du lac (2015), a finalist for the Prix littéraire des collégiens in 2016, and Vox populi (2016), both published by Le Quartanier. He was twice winner of the Grand Prix du livre de la Ville de Sherbrooke for Les années confuses (Triptyque, 1996) and La blonde de Patrick Nicol (Triptyque, 2005). The Events is his eleventh book.

January 16, 2020
Novel
448 pages
140 × 205 mm
21 €
9782896984534
978-2-8969-8453-4

Collection « série QR »