Les dames de l’estuaire par Alain Gagnon

Abstract

tries to understand what happened to the young boy, Frappat’s terse prose allows the reader to enter into Laura’s frantic thoughts: “Aucune fenêtre n’est ouverte. Dans la dernière chambre, la cabine de phare où j’entre seule, je suis assaillie par une sensation étrange. Peut-être un inconnu, derrière les murs courbes d’une illusion d’optique, m’observe-t-il” (20). It is at this precise moment that the reader must begin to be attentive to the role that children’s nursery rhymes will play in the unraveling of the disturbing mystery as Laura thinks to herself: “[L]es paroles de la comptine flottent dans l’air et je m’y cogne” (20). In the decisive battle against irrational fears, Laura resists valiantly, armed with Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shalott” (which later proves to be the key to the plot’s intrigue), a black stone, a song, and memories. It is exactly this deft combination of literary elements and play on childhood fears by Frappat that engrosses the reader into the plot of Lady Hunt. As a result, the reader cannot help but feeling trapped in a cinematic spine-chilling world of such directors as Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick. Furthermore, one questions the purpose of a nursery rhyme: is it to help a child to fall asleep more easily and have beautiful dreams or to cause the child to toss and turn in bed while having nightmares? From beginning to end, Lady Hunt is a thrilling read and will not disappoint the reader who would like to approximate the sensations of true fear. Canisius College (NY) Eileen M. Angelini Gagnon, Alain. Les dames de l’estuaire. Montréal: Triptyque, 2013. ISBN 978-289031 -892-2. Pp. 153. $20 Can. In“La toupie”, the first of Gagnon’s three“novellas,”a half-poetic, half-prose tale, Andrei Bertov sails to Haut-fond Prince, in French Canada. He is a man torn between his Ukrainian heritage and the life of “pigiste” he has made for himself in Montréal. However, he is haunted by a recurring nightmare, involving his two best friends, an avalanche, and an unending walk to Kiev. He has made this voyage to Haut-fond Prince to live alone for a month inside the lighthouse, La Toupie. He will atone for a sin he thinks he has committed, and be part of this estuary from Orléans to the mouth of the Saguenay,“pays de brouillards et de vents iodé”(10). He will write of the storms that pass, in the hopes of working through the maelstrom in his head. The writer’s use of italics for his flashbacks works very well here. Gagnon is a prolific author who has won multiple literary prizes, particularly for his poetry. The first lady of the estuary was “La toupie.” The second is “La dame aux glaïeuls.” In this novella, Jared is a man who, wishing to finish his novel, takes on the role of off-season caretaker in a hotel lost between the Saint-Laurent and the Appalachians. His friends warn him of the isolation, the cold, and the shadows of the residence. Gagnon interrupts his story with various definitions and descriptions of the gladiola for which the hotel is named. Jared becomes concerned when, while putting together several paranormal experiences, he 262 FRENCH REVIEW 88.1 Reviews 263 meets his sole neighbor whose girlfriend is named and looks like his ex-wife Gladia. Gagnon uses“pathetic fallacy”to convey mood:“Fuir loin de ce chalet,de cette auberge, de ce village aux maisons placardées, de ces rivages maudits qu’il aimait pourtant si fort en été, jadis”(73). Jared’s descent into madness is well documented by the author; the reader sits at the edge of his seat.“Le gambit de la dame” is the final novella. Sam, our protagonist, is a gun for hire. He, just like Andrei and Jared, is a writer living alone. Sam’s career and love for chess began while he was living and working at his uncle’s farm. One of his relatives was a captive of a “zugzwang” move in chess...