While on holiday in Montreal this fall, I decided to read bestseller, The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches. Perfect in size to accompany one en route, this shorter novel (the edition I read was only 138 pages in length) can easily be finished in a day or two. But don't let it fool you: the ending packs a punch that resonates long after the final page and leaves the reader horrified.
This is a story that plays with narrative and the very act of writing as testimony. The main character writes to express and communicate as much for herself as for the reader. The narrator and her brother have been left completely to their own devices after the death of their father at the opening of the novel. Isolated, defenseless, crippled by fear and a lack of commonality, the narrator invents her own language, transmogrifying words to convey meaning in a creative way, revealing to the reader the childlike yet wild nature that lies at the heart of this story. As she weaves true facts with bizarre superstitious behaviours, the narrator leaves it to the reader to decipher what feels like a fairy tale--but turns into a nightmare. By the time we discover the horrifying tragic truth of the narrator's existence, it is too late not only for her but for us.
You will be drawn to the novel's gripping yet grotesque conclusion by your desire to bear witness to the events playing out, the need to discover the truth behind all the secrets and distortions, and the heartfelt yearning we all have for redemption.
For other books by Gaetan Soucy:
| Categories: Reviews, Staff Pick |
East-end Montreal in the mid-1920s. A popular restaurant is razed by an arsonist. Seventy-five people perish in the inferno. While strolling with his wheelchair-ridden father, a man furti...
