BOOK REVIEW
BLACK BIRD MICHEL BASILIÉRES (VINTAGE)
Delightful dysfunction BILL MACPHERSON Michel Basiliéres’ debut novel
is well titled. Prominently featuring a crow, it’s also black comedy at its best. Sardonic and satirical, the book brims with regret, ailments, nefarious doings, criminal activity and politics. All combine spectacularly in Black Bird. At its heart is the dysfunctional
Desouche family of Montréal. Most of them are conniving and lazy, motivated only by self-preservation and self-betterment at the expense of others. Pettiness, nastiness and rancor fill their decrepit home. Marginally united against the
outside world, the various members of the Desouche clan operate on the edges of society. Grandfather and Uncle are grave
robbers, Father is their occasional willing accomplice. Mother has
taken to sleeping incessantly in a state of oblivious disregard, perhaps deliberately so. The son is an aspiring poet, the daughter a dedicated anti-Anglo member of a FLQ cell. They exist in collective
disharmony, a kind of us-versus- them mentality prevailing over the various spats and disagreements as they literally repel their neighbours and the bureaucrats alike. Things start to change when
Grandfather charms a new, younger, wife into marriage and then treats her rudely, pitilessly. In this deranged household, Aline struggles to make friends, or sense of anything. Her pious French background is horribly out of place amongst the Desouche oddities and alliance of deception and subterfuge. She takes a crow as someone to talk with as she toils alone in her kitchen sanctuary, and that title bird wreaks vengeance on Grandfather for his
deliberate mistreatment of her. Basiliéres’ Montréal is brilliantly
realized, as is the idiosyncratic family at the centre of Black Bird. He captures the history and politics of the city with aplomb while taking measured fictional liberties. Where the novel falters somewhat is in the side story. Basiliéres manages to cleverly tie all the loose threads together in his climax but it is rather far-fetched – hardly believable, but, as his author’s note says, it is fiction after all. There is much to like in his
macabre and entertaining tale, though. The novel has an easiness of pace driven by the scheming machinations of the Desouches.
38 BOUNDER MAGAZINE
www.bounder.ca
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72