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Nameless River
A compelling literary novel set in Paris, Toronto, and Normandy in the 19th and 20th centuries, in which memory, imagination, and desire intermingle.
Maurice, a former monk, is torn between conflicting desires that have brought his life to an impasse. He goes back to the Bel-Event, the house of his childhood—an abandoned manor on the edge of a Normandy village. As memories of his overbearing father, loving mother, and outspoken sister flood back, he must come to terms with a secret he has kept his entire he is gay.
Having hidden this part of himself so deeply, and for so long, Maurice can only confront his deepest truth by imagining a long-dead relative with the same name and the same struggles. This other Maurice lives a century prior. He manages to embrace his sexuality, takes on lovers, suffers boldly, and discovers that life is much larger and richer than he had thought.
Can present-day Maurice mine the depth of his childhood and vivid imagination to emancipate himself from shame and compliance? Will he become able to find and speak aloud his own true name?
Simultaneously entrancing and heart-breaking, Albert Crepet’s Nameless River is unexpectedly witty, dark, incisive, and truly mesmerizing in its description of persons and places. Before you know it, you will find yourself in the heart and mind of a man fighting for his life, and of the seven-year-old Normandy boy he once was.
Maurice, a former monk, is torn between conflicting desires that have brought his life to an impasse. He goes back to the Bel-Event, the house of his childhood—an abandoned manor on the edge of a Normandy village. As memories of his overbearing father, loving mother, and outspoken sister flood back, he must come to terms with a secret he has kept his entire he is gay.
Having hidden this part of himself so deeply, and for so long, Maurice can only confront his deepest truth by imagining a long-dead relative with the same name and the same struggles. This other Maurice lives a century prior. He manages to embrace his sexuality, takes on lovers, suffers boldly, and discovers that life is much larger and richer than he had thought.
Can present-day Maurice mine the depth of his childhood and vivid imagination to emancipate himself from shame and compliance? Will he become able to find and speak aloud his own true name?
Simultaneously entrancing and heart-breaking, Albert Crepet’s Nameless River is unexpectedly witty, dark, incisive, and truly mesmerizing in its description of persons and places. Before you know it, you will find yourself in the heart and mind of a man fighting for his life, and of the seven-year-old Normandy boy he once was.
- GenresFiction
244 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 21, 2024
20 people are currently reading
1461 people want to read
About the author
Albert Crepet
1 book16 followersBorn in Normandy, France, Albert Crepet made his home in Toronto in 1978. His first love was poetry. A number of his poems have been published in Compass Magazine and the New Times.
Nameless River is a novel Albert carried in his heart and worked on for many years.
When not working, Albert can be found gardening, or walking through a forest, or sitting by a lake.
Nameless River is a novel Albert carried in his heart and worked on for many years.
When not working, Albert can be found gardening, or walking through a forest, or sitting by a lake.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 10, 2024
Goodreads Kindle Book Winner and will give an honest review. This is an emotional read with a range of feelings. It reads like a bearing of the main characters soul in journal entries. Returning to his ancestral home Le Chalet du Bel-Event, Maurice unpacks and reflects on his traumatic relationships, growing up, acceptance from family and society. This story can resonate with anyone who has wrestled with acceptance of their true selves. Thank you for the opportunity to read this story.
November 27, 2025
Genre: Gay fiction, bildungsroman, literary fiction, historical fiction
Description: An unfrocked Catholic monk looks back on his life as a lonely boy, teenager and young man, and makes up the life of his namesake great-granduncle whom he never knew.
Maurice returns to his childhood home (now derelict) in Normandy for most of December 1993. He squats in the old house, and writes this book. Maurice mines his memories deeply and the lives of the two Maurices become increasingly entwined. Both Maurices are gay. Neither found that easy, nor came to terms with their sexuality. But both find acceptance and peace within themselves as the younger Maurice recreates his own past and that of his imaginary, long-dead relative. I suspect there is a substantial element of autofiction in this book.
The novel is set in Normandy, Paris and Toronto during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, moving fluidly between times and places.
Author: Amazon’s biography of Albert Crepet tells us he was “born in Normandy, France, then in 1978 made his home in Toronto. His first love was poetry. A number of his poems have been published in Compass Magazine and the New Times. Nameless River is a novel Albert carried in his heart and worked on for many years.”
When not working, Albert can be found gardening, or walking through a forest, or sitting by a lake.
Appraisal: This is a fascinating book on a number of levels. And beautifully written. Perhaps oddly, it reminded me a little of Michael Carson’s ‘Benson’ trilogy. Set in the Sixties, written in the Eighties, those three books also deal with a catholic boy trying to make sense of his sexuality. This book is less pratfall funny than Carson’s work, but perhaps more empathetic.
I couldn’t put it down. I, a heterosexual woman born in Britain in the Fifties, nevertheless found many resonances with my own childhood in this book. Dear god – how did any of us turn out able to function at all?
It is set largely in France, but is not a translation. So there isn’t that clunkiness one often gets with work which started life in another language. Much of it is set in the French countryside and shows us the way of life there in the Fifties (when de Gaulle was in power, Communism was a real force in French politics, and to own a television was a mark of status). Plenty of French phrases are used, for colour, but each is translated (so you can practice your rusty French, secure in the knowledge that a proper translation is imminent). The placenames of the villages deep in la campagne are themselves a joy.
Women are not neglected in this book. Crepet draws the characters of Maurice’s sister, mother and grandmother deftly and with great tenderness. In the times in which the book is set, women had little conventional authority and had to make a niche for themselves however they could. I still shudder when I recall how little notice anyone took of women and girls in the Fifties and Sixties in Britain. It was no better in France.
At times the novel moves back further in time and to Paris, where the author draws a picture of gay life during the first decade of the Third Republic. In 1878, foreshadowing the younger Maurice’s exile from holy orders, great granduncle Maurice is sent away from his monastery at Saint-Benôit-sur-Orne and has to find a new place in the world. These searching sections become more frequent, longer and more intense as the book unfolds.
The book is profound in the questions it asks about gay men in the two time periods it switches between: how can, should, and must an individual conduct himself when society treats him as an outcast?
Towards the end the two threads (Maurice and great-granduncle Maurice) become so agitated and enmeshed that the only way to ride the flood to the end is to let go of one’s own sensibilities and just go with the flow.
A beautifully written and presented book.
** This review originally prepared for Big Al’s Books & Pals. Received a complimentary soft copy **
Description: An unfrocked Catholic monk looks back on his life as a lonely boy, teenager and young man, and makes up the life of his namesake great-granduncle whom he never knew.
Maurice returns to his childhood home (now derelict) in Normandy for most of December 1993. He squats in the old house, and writes this book. Maurice mines his memories deeply and the lives of the two Maurices become increasingly entwined. Both Maurices are gay. Neither found that easy, nor came to terms with their sexuality. But both find acceptance and peace within themselves as the younger Maurice recreates his own past and that of his imaginary, long-dead relative. I suspect there is a substantial element of autofiction in this book.
The novel is set in Normandy, Paris and Toronto during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, moving fluidly between times and places.
Author: Amazon’s biography of Albert Crepet tells us he was “born in Normandy, France, then in 1978 made his home in Toronto. His first love was poetry. A number of his poems have been published in Compass Magazine and the New Times. Nameless River is a novel Albert carried in his heart and worked on for many years.”
When not working, Albert can be found gardening, or walking through a forest, or sitting by a lake.
Appraisal: This is a fascinating book on a number of levels. And beautifully written. Perhaps oddly, it reminded me a little of Michael Carson’s ‘Benson’ trilogy. Set in the Sixties, written in the Eighties, those three books also deal with a catholic boy trying to make sense of his sexuality. This book is less pratfall funny than Carson’s work, but perhaps more empathetic.
I couldn’t put it down. I, a heterosexual woman born in Britain in the Fifties, nevertheless found many resonances with my own childhood in this book. Dear god – how did any of us turn out able to function at all?
It is set largely in France, but is not a translation. So there isn’t that clunkiness one often gets with work which started life in another language. Much of it is set in the French countryside and shows us the way of life there in the Fifties (when de Gaulle was in power, Communism was a real force in French politics, and to own a television was a mark of status). Plenty of French phrases are used, for colour, but each is translated (so you can practice your rusty French, secure in the knowledge that a proper translation is imminent). The placenames of the villages deep in la campagne are themselves a joy.
Women are not neglected in this book. Crepet draws the characters of Maurice’s sister, mother and grandmother deftly and with great tenderness. In the times in which the book is set, women had little conventional authority and had to make a niche for themselves however they could. I still shudder when I recall how little notice anyone took of women and girls in the Fifties and Sixties in Britain. It was no better in France.
At times the novel moves back further in time and to Paris, where the author draws a picture of gay life during the first decade of the Third Republic. In 1878, foreshadowing the younger Maurice’s exile from holy orders, great granduncle Maurice is sent away from his monastery at Saint-Benôit-sur-Orne and has to find a new place in the world. These searching sections become more frequent, longer and more intense as the book unfolds.
The book is profound in the questions it asks about gay men in the two time periods it switches between: how can, should, and must an individual conduct himself when society treats him as an outcast?
Towards the end the two threads (Maurice and great-granduncle Maurice) become so agitated and enmeshed that the only way to ride the flood to the end is to let go of one’s own sensibilities and just go with the flow.
A beautifully written and presented book.
** This review originally prepared for Big Al’s Books & Pals. Received a complimentary soft copy **
November 30, 2024
This is a slow paced drama of a book. It is about a struggling man coming to terms with his sexuality - in the books description it says that he wasn’t even sure in the beginning but from the very first moments of the book and Maurice’s memory you can feel his shame. He knew he was gay - it was the reason he joined the monks, so no one would question him further about his lack of interest in women. The book is a slow burn and is focused on the shame Maurice feels for his sexuality and his struggling to come out. A decent read if not a little more long winded than it needed to be. Could have been 100 pages shorter and would have delivered more of a punch.
April 1, 2025
I enjoyed this book, dealing with a life that has experienced repressed sexuality, a disappointed father, the Catholic Church, homophobia, love, sex, and a happy ending, There is a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing in the time scale and a mix of present day narrative, retrospective detail, letters: the use of multiple fonts helped in this respect.
Recommended if this looks like your cup of tea.
Recommended if this looks like your cup of tea.
July 24, 2024
Goodreads giveaway winner / free book review:
Well written, really got into the character.
Kindle e-book on IOS.
Used Spoken content accessibility tool with English Australian female voice Matilda Premium to listen to this book.
Well written, really got into the character.
Kindle e-book on IOS.
Used Spoken content accessibility tool with English Australian female voice Matilda Premium to listen to this book.
July 17, 2024
This was a Goodreads giveaway winner. I did like the reference of Tornado in the story.
September 4, 2024
Thank you for the book, goodeads. Could not get into it.
November 2, 2024
This was a good, though a little strange, read. I did enjoy it and would recommend it.
November 2, 2024
Was not interested
September 12, 2024
Goodreads giveaway winner in exchange for unbiased opinion. Thank you, author and publisher.
This fictional story is written as a life reflection. The writing is very good with many universal truths that readers may relate with. Some of the more "raw" content throughout may be triggers for some people. It's a bit dark and somewhat intense. The ending is intelligent, honest and extremely unique mirroring the main character, Maurice.
Glad to have read it.
This fictional story is written as a life reflection. The writing is very good with many universal truths that readers may relate with. Some of the more "raw" content throughout may be triggers for some people. It's a bit dark and somewhat intense. The ending is intelligent, honest and extremely unique mirroring the main character, Maurice.
Glad to have read it.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews