Product Description

In this wholly original novel alive with misfortune and magic, Michel Basilières uncovers a Montreal not seen in any other English-Canadian work: a forgotten blue-collar neighbourhood in between the two solitudes. Gothic, outrageous, yet tender and wise, Black Bird is as liberating as the dreams of its wayward characters, and as gripping as the insurgencies that split its heart.

The Desouches have inhabited the same run-down house in working-class Montreal for years, much to the dismay of their landlord, and its ramshackle architecture perfectly mirrors that of the eccentric family living inside. Grandfather is a sour old grave-robber who relishes in the anguish he causes his wife and family. Uncle shares the same occupation, and otherwise spends much of his time drunk and alone. Neither is looking forward to the winter, which means lost work, due to the frozen ground. Father doesn’t share their gruesome job, but comes up with his own schemes anyway. Mother lies down to sleep away her grief when her father dies, and does not wake up for months. A plain French woman named Aline marries into the family, having been fooled by Grandfather’s smooth ways, only to find herself alienated in a household that chooses to speak English. Marie, the granddaughter and an FLQ terrorist, could share her language — she certainly resents that a part of her is English — but is too caught up in her politics and her anger to get involved. It falls to Marie’s twin brother, Jean-Baptiste, to play occasional translator, though as always he’d prefer to be upstairs in his attic room reading literature and writing awful poetry. Throw in a judgemental pet crow, a confused ghost, a mad doctor, peculiar neighbours, maverick policemen and the walking dead, and you’ve got the makings of the ultimate domestic drama, Montreal-style.

When an FLQ bomb set by Marie kills not only the expected strangers but her anglo maternal grandfather (what was he doing out for a smoked-meat sandwich at that hour, anyway?) it sets the family off on a notably bad run of luck. Then again, not many stretches would stand out as stellar for this peculiar group. Which points to one of the wonderful truths that Basilières allows to guide his characters: that life is crummy and a struggle just as often as it’s not, but that doesn’t keep us from wanting to enjoy it in our own ways and hoping for a better tomorrow. As in life, there is a level of coincidence here that is too uncanny to not be believable. When the drunken premier runs down a man in the street, it is not only Marie’s boyfriend and fellow activist who is killed, but the crooked cops bring the fresh corpse to Grandfather’s door to be suitably dealt with. When some of Marie’s separatist pamphlets get mixed up with Jean-Baptiste’s poetry chapbooks, a prison term and a kidnapping are among the unexpected results. When Grandfather loses an eye, his vision improves. And as events spiral out of control, it seems that some of the Desouches are at their most content.

With Black Bird, Michel Basilières has written a comic noir, a disturbing and hilarious study of how the October Crisis and the question of Canadian nationalism play out through the disjointed relationships within one family. And as with all of the best fiction, here the facts of our history do not get in the way of the truth, or of telling a good story. Compared to such disparate novels as One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Corrections, and Two Solitudes, Black Bird marks the fiction debut of a masterful and thoroughly entertaining storyteller.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132793 in Books
• Released on: 2004-03-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 311 pages

Amazon.ca
Black Bird, Michel Basilières's superb first novel, tries to be the One Hundred Years of Solitude of Quebec's October Crisis, and, by and large, it fulfills this lofty ambition. Basilières invites his readers into the home of Montreal's Desouche family, an eccentric household that harbours a terrorist, a handful of grave-robbers, two official languages, a crow, a ghost, and a matriarch in a coma. Once the story has settled comfortably into this little ménage, things begin to get weird. It begins with an explosion, when Marie Desouche inadvertently murders her Anglophone maternal grandfather by bombing a popular smoked-meat restaurant. This tragedy inaugurates a very bad year for the Desouches--these hapless and impoverished ne'er-do-wells become embroiled in all of Quebec's troubles, from the premier's drunk-driving mishap to the John Cross murder. Along the way, Basilières shoots sly winks at Voltaire, Stevenson, Mary Shelley, and Bulgakov (Woland from The Master and Margarita makes a cameo appearance as a theatrical impresario).

This tale of Quebec's peoples and politics is a brutally harsh one; while Basilières occasionally allows himself to pity his characters, Black Bird has more in common with Marie-Claire Blais's scathing early novels (such as Dürer's Angel) than the love-redeemed Montreal of Michel Tremblay's The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant. Aside from his habit of hectoring his readers with grave generalizations, Basilières is a fantastic storyteller, and his talent and chutzpah allow him to get away with a depiction of Montreal that will likely incense those who love the city best. While it isn't a perfect novel, Basilières's debut is a stronger, more original book than most novelists ever manage to write. Malicious, riotous, and moving, Black Bird is an anarchic Two Solitudes for the 21st century. --Jack Illingworth

Books in Canada
If Black Bird, by Michel Basilieres, were a painting it would be called "Two Solitudes", by Picasso. Set in Montreal this is a giant mulligatawny of a novel, violent one moment, hilarious the next, full of impossible happenings, perhaps closer to the work of Tom Robbins, though influenced by Jarry and Robbe-Grillet.
To begin with, Grandfather is a grave robber. He sells his corpses to a mad Dr. Hyde, who is a Canadian Dr. Frankenstein. Grandfather has a new wife, and a house full of weird relatives. His grandson is a self-absorbed, talentless poet, who, of course, becomes successful. His granddaughter makes bombs and executes kidnappings for the FLQ. They all live in a drafty Adams Family house, stealing gas and electricity from the funeral home next door. When the new wife realizes she has married into a family of criminals she says something to the effect that true crime doesn't pay. The black bird is a crow named Grace, who pecks out one of grandfather's eyes, though grandfather later learns to see through his glass eye. One of the granddaughter's bombs kills her other grandfather by mistake, causing her mother to go to sleep and stay asleep for months. The granddaughter's seditious political pamphlets get mixed in with the grandson's maudlin poetry and he gets arrested. There is a hit and run committed by the Quebec Premier, and the police, to cover up the event, bring the dead FLQ cell leader, the granddaughter's lover, to the grandfather to dispose of, which he does by selling the body to Dr. Hyde. Things spiral out of control when the Granddaughter kidnaps and murders a British diplomat and hides the body in the basement of Grandfather's house. Wild and unpredictable, crammed with black humor, it reads like a very entertaining fairy tale gone wrong.
W.P. Kinsella (Books in Canada)

Review
“This macabre, sometimes fantastical, often hilarious first novel…manages to be at once ghastly, farcical and shot through with a pathos that tugs about equally at mind and heart. Black Bird is a terrific read, an epic critique of and lament for the decades of rhetoric and rancour, and blood, that have yet to lead Quebec to the mythic prize of nationhood…. Vive le satirical livre!” -- The Globe and Mail

“a stunning debut novel…wildly inventive and darkly funny…. Bravura plotting and comic talent are only the surface of Black Bird’s achievement. Basilières has the essential qualities of a first-rate satirist, in spades. He displays an abiding love for his characters, however awfully they behave, but his rage is equally inextinguishable…. His brilliant novel is an extended metaphor for the messy, intractable, essentially unbreakable web that history has made of Canada.” -- Brian Bethune, Maclean's

“At first glance, [Black Bird] looks a little like a Canadian take on Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. But where Franzen depicts the decline of the nuclear family, Basilières gives us a core meltdown. . . . Spirited, clever [and] dead on.” -- The Gazette (Montreal)

“Black Bird rocks. An exuberant new Quebec voice that speaks for all of us living in the spaces in between.” -- Susan Swan

“When someone tells you that a first novel is ‘brilliant’ or ‘stunning,’ they’re usually lying and they know it. But occasionally a book comes along that’s as good as the jacket cover blurb says it is. Michel Basilières’ first novel is a work of enormous love; it’s intelligent without the pirouettes, literate without showing off. And very funny. It’s that rare thing among novels, a book you should actually read twice.” -- David Gilmour

“Black Bird is a great, wonderful monster of a novel, from the history of Frère André’s black heart to the screeching of the crow, Grace, from its astounding descriptions of Montreal to its observations of the compulsions and frustrations of one Family Desouche, it ushers in a new, hilarious, wildly imaginative, powerful and heartfelt voice.” -- Edward Carey

“If ever a book defied description it is Black Bird. Covering themes as big as Canada itself and as dangerous as the battle field of family life, it is outrageous, hilarious and surreal. It is a remarkable creation, brilliantly original.” -- Mary Lawson

“The delightful, macabre nature of Michel Basilières’ novel doesn’t hide the real sweetness of a writer who so obviously loves his fellows, especially when they are at their worst. Basilières’ comic sensibility is as black and shining as a crow’s wing. I believe Lovecraft must be sitting up in his grave and grinning.” -- Gail Anderson-Dargatz


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

The best debut novel of 2003
Crafting a delightfully macabre comic novel incorporating nods to PQ premier/homicidal motorist Rene Levesque, faith healer Brother Andre, dastardly doctor Ewan Cameron (of "In the Sleep Room" fame) and the October Crisis is not an easy task, but Michel Basilieres pulls it off with great aplomb. It's hard to see how Basilieres will top this stunning first novel, but until he does "Black Bird" provides much to entertain the erudite reader, and should particularly amuse those familiar with Montreal's geography and history. Highly recommended.

Good first novel, strong start, soft finish
Basilieres' black comedy has a strong humorous start. The Grandfather, who is a career grave robber, hits the frost line while trying to dig up his latest corpse and proclaims the "season" (the grave robbing season) over. A visit to a funeral home to pay respects to his daughter-in-law's deceased father offers another brilliant comedic moment, on par with Stephen Leacock's famed visit to a bank.

Unfortunately, the comedy gives way too often for Basilieres' personal exposition on separatism and French/English relations which seem artificially hammered into the narrative. In that, he offers little new in the debate.

He also seems to play a bit too much with the history of the October Crisis and ends up confusing the reader familiar with Quebec history. The book starts off before the Laporte/Cross kidnappings. Basilieres' then introduces a PQ premier who you assume is Rene Levesque. Since Levesque took power during the late '70s, you assume the author has moved up the story in time. But apparently not. We're still back in 1970 although Robert Bourassa, leader of the Liberal party, was actually the premier at that time. Unfortunately, what started as a novel that promised a hard biting tact and a dark humor that holds nothing as sacred suddenly begins to look like an author pulling his punches. Kudos, however, to Basilieres' for working into the story the theft of Brother Andre's heart, which actually took place in 1973.

Despite these short comings, it's a rather good read.

Great Read
An excellent read. Espeically for people who remember the past of Montreal. The book is full of great characters who will keep you entertained throughout. Recommended.