Atonement is Sheila Fischman's translation of Gaétan Soucy's brilliant novel, originally published in French as L'Acquittement. Twenty years after leaving the tiny village of Saint Aldor, Louis Bapaume has come home to make amends. During that one blustery winter solstice day, between the railway station and the church where a funeral mass is underway, he meets old villagers, forgotten neighbors, and characters who are either imagined or real. But there's only one person he seeks: the von Croft twin he taught to read music and to whom he wants to atone. Soucy creates a world where nothing is left to chance and the line between dream and reality is always shifting.

Atonement: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Soucy, Gaétan

Literary

House of Anansi Press

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

In Vaudeville! no one is who he or she appears, including Xavier, a seventeen-year-old apprentice demolition man who claims to be an immigrant from Hungary. After Xavier falls into a hole, he suffers bizarre humiliations and eventually loses his job. Soon he and his singing frog are hired to perform in a vaudeville show in which violence and ugliness blend like a cartooni with comedy and music. Vaudeville!, Gaétan Soucy's fascinating tableau, dares us to look into the darkest sides of the human experience.

Vaudeville!: A Novel

Contemporary

Twenty years after being chased out of his tiny village, Louis Bapaume returns to Saint-Aldor to make amends. Over the course of one bright winter solstice, Bapaume confronts old neighbors and villagers and encounters haunting figures he can't quite recognize. But there’s only one person he seeks: the twin girl he taught to read music and to whom he wishes to atone. In this intricate, disquieting novel, the line between reality and dreams shifts in the swirling storm of one man’s conscience.

Atonement

Alone with their bullying father on a vast estate, a sister and brother speak a language and inhabit a universe of their own making. When the old man commits suicide, they are forced into contact with the villagers and their cloak of romance and superstition quickly falls away to reveal shocking truths. Balancing naiveté with carnality, Soucy employs his signature playfulness, plot twists, and fascination with guilt, cruelty, and violence in a narrative tour de force where nothing is quite what it seems.

Gaétan Soucy sets this acclaimed novel in a parallel-universe New York, just before the great stock market crash of 1929. Xavier X. Mortanse is an apprentice demolition worker who believes he's an immigrant from Hungary. By the time Xavier finds a singing frog in a miniature coffin, tries his luck on the vaudeville stage, and upsets a grandmaster chess match, Soucy has seduced readers into a netherworld of unforgettable eccentrics that riffs on chaos, corruption, and the surprising light of the human spirit.

Vaudeville!

In 1920s Montreal, 75 parishoners die one terrible night at the hands of an arsonist. Among the survivors are Remouald, whose nightmarish, repressed childhood memories cause him constant turmoil; Séraphon, his invalid father who holds a self-destructive secret; and schoolteacher Clémentine Clément, who obsesses in solitude over past tragedies, unrequited passions, and the grim suspicion that something is woefully amiss with a group of young boys in her class. Gaétan Soucy applies his trademark vivid language, bracing wit, and fearless insight to this compelling story of horror and hope.

The Immaculate Conception

Alone with their authoritarian father on an immense estate surrounded by a forest, a pair of siblings speak a language and inhabit a universe of their own making. When their father commits suicide, they are forced into contact with the villagers beyond the enclosure and their cloak of romance and superstition quickly falls away to reveal not only the startling truth about themselves, but the startling truth about the world to them. Balancing naiveté with carnality, Soucy creates a powerfully gripping story where nothing is as it first seems. His surprising twists and fascination with guilt, cruelty, and violence make this story a resounding triumph. Featuring a new introduction by Rawi Hage, the Dublin IMPAC awardwinning author of DeNiro’s Game.

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches (A List)

A-LIST

Two children grow up alone with their authoritarian father on an isolated estate, speaking a language and inhabiting a surreal universe of their own creation that has been shaped by their reading of tales of chivalry and philosophy, until the death of their father brings them into contact with the outside world and reveals the dark truth of their existence. 15,000 first printing.

Arcade Publishing

La Petite Fille Qui Aimait Trop Les Allumettes

La Petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes

Genre Fiction

POINTS

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

Books by Soucy, Gaétan

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

Atonement: A Novel

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

Vaudeville!: A Novel

Atonement

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

Vaudeville!

The Immaculate Conception

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches (A List)

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

La Petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes