La désertion

The second part of a cycle about the Hanse family, whose Grand Cirque d'Hiver ran aground in Abitibi in 1933: the trapeze artist Al Alexander Hanse died after a triple somersault, and his wife Delphine, a singer, abandoned their three children. This time the focus is on the youngest, Michelle-Anne, called Mie. When the novel opens she is an old woman whose husband, the father of her six children, has just died, and she does not cry. Her life has been one long desertion. Her rare memories, of a childhood perched in a pot in the camp kitchen where her grandmother slaughtered pigs, or hidden in a bear's den by a brother, are all she has; the rest of her story belongs to others.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

199 pages in the original

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

Canada

Series

Abitibi cycle, book 2 · book 3: La Cité des Vents

First published

2001 by L'instant même

Author's age

44 when first published

ISBN

9782895021421 (original)

More

Wikidata