The Hollow Beast
A Globe and Mail Most Anticipated Spring Title
Don Quixote meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit in this slapstick epic about destiny, family demons, and revenge.
1911. A hockey game in Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula. With the score tied two-two in overtime, local tough guy Billy Joe Pictou fires the puck directly into Monti Bouge's mouth. When Pictou's momentum carries them both across the goal line in a spray of shattered teeth, Victor Bradley, erstwhile referee and local mailman, rules that the goal counts--and Monti's ensuing revenge for this injustice sprawls across three generations, one hundred years, and dozens of dastardly deeds. Fuelled by a bottomless supply of Yukon, the high-proof hooch that may or may not cause the hallucinatory sightings of a technicolor beast that haunts not just Monti but his descendants, it's up to Monti's grandson François--and his floundering doctoral dissertation--to make sense of the vendetta that's shaped the destiny of their town and everyone in it. Brilliantly translated into slapstick English by Lazer Lederhendler, The Hollow Beast introduces Christophe Bernard as a master of epic comedy.
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Praise for The Hollow Beast
"From rural Quebec, a sprawling, antic, alcohol-soaked family saga centered on a feud with the postman ... full of slapstick and fresh, lively language and outlandishness ... it's rollicking, inventive fun."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Mixing family history with local lore, the satirical novel The Hollow Beast is a tale of revenge and hauntings."
--Isabella Zhou, Foreword Reviews
"A master of epic storytelling, The Hollow Beast is an inherently fascinating saga of a read from start to finish."
--Midwest Book Review
"Quebecois writer Bernard debuts with a feverish burlesque about a one-time hockey player's decades-long dispute with a referee and his grandson's attempts to reverse the family curse ... Bernard's bawdiness and mania credibly evoke Thomas Pynchon's flights of invention."
--Publishers Weekly
"A controversial goal at a 1911 hockey game in the Gaspé Peninsula leads to a family vendetta that spans more than three generations and 100 years, shaping the destinies of a small town and its inhabitants. With The Hollow Beast, translator Lazer Lederhendler brings Quebec author Christophe Bernard's 2018 Governor General's Literary Award-shortlisted novel to English readers."
--Cassandra Drudi, Quill and Quire
"Christophe Bernard has hollowed out the past like a beast and, like an alchemist, has excavated a language of pure gold. He has added a great, savage nugget to Quebec literature."
--La Presse (Montreal)
"Christophe Bernard scores a huge hit with The Hollow Beast ... He gives birth to a sort of crazed novel in the form of a fireworks show ... Bernard slips into the patchwork skin of a kind of Thomas Pynchon crossbred with Rabelais and Victory-Lévy Beaulieu (with a pint of James Joyce) ... His writing is flamboyant with vernacular flights. An example of utter mastery."
--Le Devoir (Montreal)
"The reader swims in sheer delirium reading The Hollow Beast, a novel from the Gaspé that takes place over several generations. Passionate and unsettling ... A universe plugged in at 10,000 volts!"
--Radio Canada
"A tale with plenty of momentum that covers a whole century and is at once fantastic, funny, cruel, brilliant."
--Le Journal de Montréal
"A family saga unlike any other ... And it's funny! I envy this writer's talent."
--L'Actualité (Montreal)
