When I learned of the death of François Blais, this madly talented writer, I immediately thought of his moving story. A book about Mélanie Cabay. He tells why, in the summer of 1994, he decided never to forget this 19-year-old girl who had just been found, murdered.
Yet he did not know her; he could even, he says, not have « dragged it out of the torrent of miscellaneous facts that pass under our noses day after day. » But then, she looked so much like his sister, his former girlfriend, or that girl who made him dream… Their destiny was not to be killed at 19, when so many women die of violence then sink into oblivion.
My turn to say that I did not know François Blais, except for having clumsily expressed all my admiration to him during a book fair where he held a signing session that was not at all popular. He listened to me with the discomfort of someone who doesn’t know what to do with these social events. Our meeting was brief!
And I, too, could have let his death drown in the torrent of anxiety-provoking news circulating: the war, soaring prices, looming shortages, early heat waves…
But now, I read almost all his books, cracking each time for the tone and the inventiveness: Blais thus entered my literary family.
Several writers dig the same furrow, which we survey in our turn with happiness. François Blais, on the contrary, has touched on all genres: the investigation, the choral novel, the personal account, the stories of ghosts, the travelogue (immobile!)… Even science fiction in his latest work, The only thing that interests everyonepublished a few months ago.
This one hooked me less, but who cares: I was confidently awaiting his next book. Except that there won’t be any, there won’t be any more. A destiny interrupted, but of his doing. There is a whole irony here for an author who has dissected the unacceptable that was the death of Mélanie Cabay and the effect that this produced, even among complete strangers.
Similarly, in his masterful novel Madame Valérie’s class (where he follows and ages 25 fifth graders from a primary school in Grand-Mère), he stops at the case of Laurent Boisvert-Lemay. The 17-year-old college student intends to kill himself after his philosophy class for the day. Pure chance, this one is devoted to suicide and morality. “This did not trouble Laurent unduly: he knew that he would not go back on his decision, even if all the great thinkers of past centuries demonstrated to him, by irrefutable arguments, the immorality of suicide. »
Better still, this last day of Laurent takes place with the acute awareness of feeling “also alive”. And for you, Francois?…
Obviously, I understand that we don’t have a head for irony when we decide to end our lives. I also know that the suffering felt pushes the entourage into the shadows, and much further away from people you don’t know. I also imagine that when we allow ourselves to provoke it, we forget to have already written: « personally, I would never dare to be impolite with death » (in Melanie Cabay).
But what a shame this ending was, especially because Blais was, in my eyes, emblematic of the life of a writer in Quebec: not a star, occupied elsewhere to earn his living (in his case, night concierge in a shopping center), appreciated critics but unknown to the general public, of a constant production, strong in literary references and yet accessible. And in the case of Blais, punctuated with a tasty and biting derision; he will have made his readership laugh a lot!
We support so badly those who make the richness of Quebec literature, all focused are we on music and television, where our contribution distinguishes us as a small nation.
The most recent data from the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec show that some 8,000 titles were published by Quebec publishing houses in 2019. Of this number, more than 3,500 belonged to the « literature » category, or 44% of the production. This share was 29% 10 years earlier.
That is to say the number of authors who aspire to be read, even for a single book. And in the lot, there are all these professional writers who build a work, far from the limelight. And since you really have to sell a lot to get a small income from a novel, only vocation explains the desire to persevere.
There are indeed the literary prizes, which pay sums appreciated and which ensure fame. But several high-quality novels do not correspond to the criteria of the day. François Blais, he received very little; he was not a competitive man. Nevertheless, his work – 16 novels and collections of short stories, adults and youth alike – holds up despite the passage of time.
And yet, I must admit that when someone asks me for advice on reading, his name does not spontaneously come to mind. Instead, I’m talking about just-released Quebec titles, which often earns me the reaction: “Shouldn’t we rather read (slide here the name of a world-famous author, à la Elena Ferrante)? I understand then that I must stick to what is really popular. So I pick from the list of “our” literary stars, or award-winning local books, or those of the year that everyone has been talking about.
This is how Blais, the writer outside the category, is sent back to the margins. When I want to catch up with him, it’s too late: I’ve been asked the question for days!…
That’s why I want to take up in my own way his words dedicated to Mélanie Cabay: « It’s silly, I know, but since Sunday, I decided that it was important that I don’t forget never Francois Blais. »
Need help ? Contact the Quebec suicide prevention line, accessible at all times, at 1 866 APPELLE (1 866 277-3553) or the psychosocial intervention line at 811. Resources are also available on the Comments on suicide website.
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