Description
Disturbing and sensuous, Audree Wilhelmy's tale of a hermetic family minding a lighthouse in willed isolation is reminiscent of William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
The Body of Beasts is a startling, gorgeously written novel that tells the story of the Borya family living in isolation. Their lives are altered when young Osip, peering from the lighthouse gallery sees a woman, Noe, arrive - her dress scant, her skin curiously scarred, and her manner mysterious and wild.
Noe bears a child, Mie, to the eldest son on whose hunter-gathering the Borya family depends. She lives in a cabin on her own and covers the walls with drawings that allude to her mysterious life. The family's entrenchment in nature is enthrallingly conveyed in young Mie's sensuous ability to borrow at will the body of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Her shape-shifting allows her to know the ways of the natural world, though only to a point. When her own awakening body starts to intrigue her, she asks her uncle Osip to "teach me human sex."
The Body of the Beasts is an imaginative tour de force, a beautifully described portrait of a world that exists outside of words; an uninhibited and erotic novel that, in the singular tradition of Quebecois Boreal Gothic, explores our humanity - and animal nature.
REVIEW COPIES:
- Publishers Weekly
- Booklist
- Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
AUDREE WILHELMY was born in 1985 in Cap-Rouge, Quebec, and now lives in Montreal.She is the winner of France's Sade Award, has been a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the Prix France-Quebec and the Quebec Booksellers Award. SUSAN OURIOU is an award-winning fiction writer and literary translator with over sixty translations and co-translations of fiction, non-fiction, children's and young-adult literature to her credit. She has won the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation. Jane, the Fox and Me, co-translated with Christelle Morelli, was named to IBBY's Honour List. She has also published Nathan, a novel for young readers. Susan lives in Calgary, Alberta.
Reviews
The Body of the Beasts is a visceral story with wings: rhythmically beating, it both suffocates readers and prepares us to soar.
* World Literature Today *The Body of the Beasts is daring and darkly erotic, as emotionally and morally elusive as the characters who roam within it ... Wilhelmy's language is tight yet immersive; there is an underlying melancholy to it, like being alone in a forest with nothing but the sound of rustling leaves. It is rare and delightful to find a novel where language and character move so seamlessly together, hand in hand ... A piece of this book will linger. * Literary Review of Canada *
Sensual and strange. * Booklist *
[Wilhelmy] is a meticulous recorder of the dramatic wilderness ... Lovely writing. * Kirkus Reviews *
Masterful ... Finding beauty in unexpected places, be they natural settings or seldom-explored corners of human behaviour, is something Wilhelmy does as well as any young writer in any language. * Montreal Gazette *
With a miniaturist's touch, Audree Wilhelmy creates a singular universe suffused with sap and silence, at once lush to the limit, smothering and amoral ... A tour de force of audacity and sensuality achieved unhesitatingly in full-bodied writing that is precise and without misstep. A brilliant novel that explores from on high an aspect of the human condition too often eluded: our own bestiality. * Le Devoir *
Book Information
ISBN 9781487006105
Author Audree Wilhelmy
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint House of Anansi Press Ltd ,Canada
Publisher House of Anansi Press Ltd ,Canada
Weight(grams) 231g
