Airs Family *** 1 / 2 
We love the heat
heady, dizzying array of July! Clammy skin, gesture gets heavier, the thought flickers. Nobody knows why, his eyes constantly rises to the sky. The day, blue and green lights of all its pieces. At night the stars guide our uncertain steps, like the Magi summer. The novel by Dominique Fortier,
Tears of St. Lawrence, convinces us to stay on the lookout for any unusual signs from elsewhere ...
Can we say that the novel is divided into three parts? We think rather three new overlapping a happy way. It is not at the first reading the clues linking them to state actors, but later, when the stories will settle. We met with Cyparis Baptist, the sole survivor of the eruption of Mount Pelee, Martinique, May 8, 1902. Black man whose destiny will affect his descendants. First jailed for advocating a "prostitute" in a bar, it will once again for a crime he did not commit. Meanwhile, phenomenon exhibited as a circus, he married Alice whose young son feeds the animals and take care of them. He later fall in love madly Stella, wife of one of two members of the circus, with whom he had a brief affair that ends tragically.
The second part takes place at the same time, in England. Augustus Edward Hough Love, mathematician, is studying the mystery of numbers and was the author of "Treaty on a heavy solid [...] elasticity. If Dominique Fortier took some liberties with his life, he does his portrait fascinates, recalling the no less exciting Baptist Cyparis. Love Edward married Garance musician who likes thuds of the earth and fire. She died giving birth to twins. Like the Baptist, repeatedly insulted because he was black, Love will have "the impression that his life was over, befallen, consumed, and for the first time he felt truly know fear. Afraid that desperately confusing the two exhausted men they are having too much hope of life and lost his beloved. Garance is the memory of which will respond to the title of the novel through her children. One night in August, while the twins were four years their admire their father is the Perseids, "that Garance was always called" tears of St. Lawrence "in honor of the unfortunate saint born in the late summer [...]"
Other contemporary time, a day of winter. A young woman walking her dog and those of its neighbors on Mount Royal. We do not know who she is or how she lives. Soon, she will cross the path of a young man no better off it. He read many books on civilizations - Pompeii, Herculaneum - destroyed by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Gradually, they become tame, trusting, looking not to touch their little secrets old life. Are they not as young as we thought? In two pages, the author slips a major clue to the past of the Dog Walker. It was a circus trapeze artist in a serious accident that interrupted his career. His partner, spoke quickly, was more than "a tall, thin, sad-featured. [...] He looks young but has the eyes of an old man, he walks in leaning on a cane [...] ". Many references describing hypothetical years, certain issues obscure the ancestry of two young people. The end or the beginning of their encounter entirely unexpected, leaves us speechless of surprising admiration, even though we know nothing or nobody, can not be built alone. In a triptych
expertly prepared, is proving an ultimate love story, through the pages, embellished with poetic digressions and necessary, direct the reader to unusual events. We love that Dominique Fortier outside the box, it informs us of facts away from forms, individuals who have lived, a somewhat forgotten but which way we look at the world today is not quite the same. We also like that, without exaggeration, the writer uses the imperfect subjunctive, adding a very special charm to fullness of his extended sentence. It teaches us that hardships are not independent planetary laws stellar. Adversity that man is not always interpret, or understand. He is a talented voice reminds him that it depends on the universality of celestial and terrestrial few contingencies. Strangely, the novel fits to Anne Michaels
The tomb winter masterfully translated by the same writer. We read the novel by Dominique Fortier, telling us that civilizations subject to the whims of humanity, especially the natural cycles of the planet, are there not to last. Ephemeral vestiges of our passage over land, notifying us that a century to another, human beings, despite their disappearance, weld a chain indestructible that they can not escape their destiny grand, sometimes pathetic ...
Tears of St. Lawrence, Dominique Fortier editions Alto, Quebec, 2010, 344 pages
