Baloney

by Maxime Raymond Bock, Pablo Strauss (Translation)

"Bock's language crackles with the energy of a Québécois folk song, impassioned and celebratory but also melancholy and cheekily ironic." — The New Yorker , on Atavisms A young, floundering author meets Robert "Baloney" Lacerte, an older, marginal poet who seems to own nothing beyond his unwavering certainty. Over the course of one summer evening, Lacerte recounts his unrelenting quest for poetry, which has taken him from Quebec's Boreal forests to South America to East Montreal, where he seems poised to disappear without a trace. But as the blocked writer discovers, Lacerte might just be full of it. Maxime Raymond Bock lives in Montreal, Quebec. Atavisms , his first book, won the Prix Adrienne-Choquette. Pablo Strauss , who translated Atavisms , lives in Quebec City, Quebec.

96 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2016

Reviews

[Jennifer Paloulian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but felt something was lost in translation.

[Brooke Salaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving tale of the main character, nickname Baloney, and how he came to live through and for poetry despite meeting with no success. Told by a younger poet who meets him at a traveling poetry night near the end of his life and learns his life story. Throughout his life he encountered a great deal of hardship and mistreatment but writing and reading became an obsession through his encounter with a fellow kitchen worker in a logging camp in his youth. They end up escaping and his travels lead him to work at a diner in a college town where his reading is guided by overheard conversations among the picturesque youth who gather there. He and his girlfriend befriend an artistic couple and he and the male half, Simon, travel together to South America where Simon is killed. Baloney returns home and spends a period of time homeless before finding employment cleaning and maintaining a public swimming pool. With some interruptions, he continues to find poetry in his humble existence, often fueled by alcohol. The narrator, considers himself a mediocre poet and the glimpses he has had of Baloney’s voluminous writings (formerly stored with his older brother, returned when the brother died) show him work he feels clichéd and unremarkable. Baloney continues to believe in his own exceptional ability throughout his life and we really have no idea who is correct.