The Golden Galarneaus

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

This lively and entertaining sequel to writer and filmmaker Jacques
Godbout’s Hail Galarneau continues the adventures of three brothers: a
successful radio and television writer, a con artist and revolutionary,
and a drifter who sometimes writes a good novel. Their adventures are
numerous and diverse, and often very funny, imbued with a black humor
that feeds on the irony and absurdities of modern life.

Well translated by Patricia Plaxton, this second book takes the
brothers to Montreal, Paris, Florida, Bruxelles, New York, and Cayenne.
All of them, but especially Franзois the drifter, read and reflect
incessantly on politics, life, love, and art. It is art—antique erotic
art of great value—that will finally propel Franзois, and possibly
his brothers as well, into a different world. As Franзois states,
“between the covers of a book, one is never confined.”