The Voyageur
(By Paul Carlucci) Read EbookSize | 22 MB (22,081 KB) |
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Author | Paul Carlucci |
“Recalls Hilary Mantel’s The Giant, O’Brien in its robust prose and unflinching presentation of the costs of being a strange human in different times.” – Randy Boyagoda, The Times Literary Supplement
“[T]racing the fine lines between love and use, between an exchange of services and an abuse of power. . . . This is a beautifully paced, moving and thought-provokingly deep read.” – Estelle Birdy, The Irish Independent
“Exceptionally vivid and intense.” – Nick Renison, The Sunday Times
Alex is a motherless stockboy in 1830s Montreal, waiting desperately for his father to return from France. Serge, a drunken fur trader, promises food and safety in return for friendship, but an expedition into the forest quickly goes awry.
At the mercy of men whose motives are unclear, Alex must learn to find his own way in a world where taking advantage of others has become second nature. But will he have to abandon his humanity to survive?
The Voyageur is a brilliantly realised novel set on the margins of British North America, where kindness is costly and where the real wilderness may not be in the landscape surrounding Alex but in the deceptive hearts of men.
“The Voyageur is a marvellous work of art, brutal, tender and deeply moving. It has many of the qualities of Cormac McCarthy at his ferocious best, without the excesses of the late American master. The narrative is set in history, but the novel triumphantly surpasses the constrictions of a genre label.”
– John Banville, Booker and Franz Kafka Prize–winning author of The Lock-Up, The Singularities, and The Sea
“The Voyageur is an intimate adventure across a vast canvas. Based on a fascinating historical starting point, Carlucci’s empathetic novel has much to say about the delight and the shame that spring from something we all have in common: the human body.”
– Aliya Whiteley, Arthur C. Clarke Award–nominated author of The Beauty, The Loosening Skin, and Skyward Inn
“A fascinating read. . . . The characters are pithily described and fully alive, the places likewise. I was in the virgin forests and the plunging rivers; I was on the filthy beach of Mackinac; in the gross tavern and muddied, choleric streets of York.”
– Tim Pears, Hawthornden Prize–winning author of Run to the Western Shore, The Wanderers, and The Redeemed”