Black Bird

Joseph Jones is a reference librarian in the Koerner Library at the
University of British Columbia.

Both clever and heartfelt, this novel takes its reader into the strange
divided world of the three-generation Desouche family, their
many-chambered house, a phantasmagoric Montreal, and a warped evocation
of separatism. A strong plot, thematic ingenuity, and a consistent voice
make everything work, rather than leaving it to seem like “some
private reality where everything [is] mixed together fantastically and
improbably.”

Like Michel Basiliиres himself, the family is a mixture of French and
English. The youngest generation, twins Marie and Jean-Baptiste, take
opposite directions: Marie spearheads separatist activism in her FLQ
cell (and the cellar), while Jean-Baptiste pursues English-language
literary endeavours in his attic room.

Resonance derives from fable’s intersection with history. Fairy-tale
touches abound: a stepmother, a long-sleeping woman, brother-and-sister
twins, a disembodied human heart, an ominous black dog, the titular
mascot crow. Events in the story play off of Dr. Ewen Cameron’s
CIA-supported experiments with LSD, René Lévesque’s drunk-driving
manslaughter, the FLQ kidnapping of James Cross and strangling of Pierre
Laporte, and Hubert Aquin’s separatist involvements. Details like the
Black Snow Theatre Company and the last chapter’s title, “Dernier
épisode,” pay additional tribute to Aquin.

The covert and failing family enterprise is grave-robbing. The opening
paragraph announces death “at the centre of everything.” Advancing
the plot are an abortion, a manslaughter, and two strangulations. The
novel’s secondary characters include a ghost and a zombie. The closing
Halloween trumps the intermediate Christmas.

Nevertheless, intimations of mystery, miracle, and soul mitigate this
blackness. Grandfather finds himself giving “long thought to puzzling
questions.” However misdirected, Marie and Dr. Hyde find purpose in
very different struggles toward a “Great Work.” Intended to
disappoint, the blankness of a gift book inspires Jean-Baptiste.

“Things that aren’t easily explained by a merely material
universe” find their epitome in Dr. Hyde’s use of bodies in his
quest for the soul. In a late scene, the black bird named Grace delves
deeply into Hubert’s damaged head for “a berry or a nut,”
recalling Descartes’s supposition that mind meets body in the pineal
gland.

The reverberation of “souche” (stump, stock) in the family name
offers a small example of the reflexive delights offered by this true
cousin of Gogol’s Dead Souls. Although the satire and black humour
sometimes veer into sarcasm, tedium remains scarce.