A 2005 Canada Reads Selection In this classic road novel, Jacques Poulin tells the story of a man in search of his brother. The geographical journey -- through Detroit, into Chicago, on to St. Louis, along the Oregon Trail and into California -- becomes a metaphor for the exploration of the history of the French in North America.

Volkswagen Blues

Literature & Fiction

Poulin, Jacques

Literary

McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

In 1950, a devastating fire breaks out in Rimouski. Thomas survives the blaze, but loses his memory and is institutionalized. A shell of his former self, he pieces together a makeshift existence by becoming a gardener. Upon his release five years later, two childhood friends, Marie and Romain, hire Thomas to do their landscaping. Little do they know that they are also inviting him into their marriage, a union characterized by male dominance and female subservience. As time passes, Marie begins to see Thomas  as her escape from the unendurable.  In 2002, Romain and Marie_s youngest daughter, Lou, returns home for the first time since running away to Chicago thirty years before. She brings along her husband Joe, who has recently suffered a brain aneurysm that has imprisoned him in his own body. Their presence reminds Marie of her own past, of the connections she never asked for and the ties she can never break.

Spring Tides (English and French Edition)

Contemporary

House of Anansi Pr

A quietly affecting modern fairy tale told with humor and warmth, Translation is a Love Affair is a slender novel of immense humanity. A Quebecois novelist with a bad back and his vivacious young translator discover a stray cat with an SOS attached to its collar. They embark upon a search for its owner, and when they discover a young girl with bandaged wrists they are drawn into a mystery they don't dare neglect. The world Poulin creates is haunted by dark memories, isolation, and tragedy, yet it is a world in which language - and love - are the most immediate and vital forces, where one human being hearing a cry of distress of another is compelled to shed one's own inhibitions to respond.

Translation is a Love Affair

United States

Archipelago Books

Mr. Blue is Jim's cat and his sole companion until the day they discover a copy of The Arabian Nights in a cave along the beach. From then on, the novel Jim is writing develops in unexpected ways. For words are independent like cats, and they don't do what you want them to.

Mr. Blue

Véhicule Press

English Is Not a Magic Language

Esplanade Books

In this classic road novel, Jacques Poulin tells the story of a man in search of his brother. The geographical journey — through Detroit, into Chicago, on to St. Louis, along the Oregon Trail and into California — becomes a metaphor for the exploration of the history of the French in North America.

Cormorant Books

Jacques Poulin's wonderful novel about a professional writer who composes and hand writes letters and documents for a living. He lives in the upper town of the old town of Quebec, in an apartment that shares a wall with Kim, a psychologist. The courtyard below Jacques' rooms is a home to Pretty Cat, who sleeps in the tree. The writer becomes involved with Kim when she reveals to him that she has been beaten ― by a lover or a patient, he does not know.

Wild Cat

Jack Waterman is a writer who owns a bookstore in Quebec City. Jimmy is an aspiring writer with no roots and no experience. When one day Jimmy wanders into Jack's store, Jack becomes his mentor. Jimmy goes to Paris, but returns to Quebec when Jack takes a turn for the worse. Jack suffers from Eisenhower's disease, his name for Alzheimer's, and although it is progressing slowly, he is aware that at some point soon he is going to lose his faculties.

My Sister's Blue Eyes

Cormorant Books Inc.

One of Jacques Poulin’s masterpieces, this tender and perceptive tale explores the textures of solitude, compassion, language, fear, and the imagination. Meet Jim: writer suffering from vivid dreams and bouts of writer’s block. Meet Mister Blue, a dignified and prophetic cat and Jim’s sole companion that spring on the Île d’Orléans. That is, until the day they discover a copy of The Arabian Nights in a cave along the beach. Tinged with heartbreak as well as joy, Mister Blue is a novel of subtle shadows and emotions, of wide-open blue sky—a ballet of the possible.

Mister Blue

A heartfelt masterpiece about the joys of travel, reading, and companionship. In rural Canada, dotted along the coast of a vast mauve river, live villagers of different stripes- a recently divorced hydroplane pilot, a factory-worker who closely resembles her fisherman husband, a probing motorcyclist with a pet St. Bernard, a pair of beautiful blonde joggers, and other curious characters. For all their differences, each is brought together by a soft-spoken man, referred to only as "the Driver," who travels up and down the coast each season, delivering books to areas not served by libraries and listening closely to the villager's tales and to their woes. This summer tour is bound to be different than all the rest. The Driver has made friends with a traveling band of musicians, jugglers, artists, and acrobats who decide to come along for a ride that the Driver has privately decided will be his last. Jacques Poulin's compassionate prose delves into the hidden pains of aging and loss without losing sight of the tremendous joy that can be found in making the world a little more livable for other people.

Autumn Rounds

Archipelago

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Poulin, Jacques. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Poulin, Jacques

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Poulin, Jacques. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Volkswagen Blues

Spring Tides (English and French Edition)

Translation is a Love Affair

Mr. Blue

English Is Not a Magic Language

Volkswagen Blues

Wild Cat

My Sister's Blue Eyes

Mister Blue

Autumn Rounds