Scattered in a Rising Wind

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French studies at the University
of Guelph.

Jean Marc Dalpé is an award-winning Franco-Ontarian writer who lives in
Montreal, but is originally from Sudbury, Ontario. As the title of this
slim novel suggests, there’s a constantly rising wind in Northern
Ontario that scatters the French-speaking inhabitants of this particular
region into the world, moving them “into a future that has nothing to
do with the past.”

Dalpé has situated his novel in a small mill town north of Sudbury, a
claustrophobic, incestuous, insular environment that inevitably breeds
rebellion among its young, who must endeavour to either change their
world or else get away from it. When the protagonist, Marcel, hears the
news of a forest fire raging not far from the small town, all he can
think is “Let it burn, fuck, let it burn!”

That is how Scattered in a Rising Wind begins. Will the furious young
rebels really escape or will some settle down in another little town not
too far away? After all, Dalpé tells us in lyrical yet very
contemporary language, not all of our dreams can be realized.