The Hollow Beast

Description

Winner of the 2025 French-American Translation Prize in Fiction Finalist for the 2024 Governor Generals Literary Award in Translation Finalist for the 2025 Cole Foundation Prize for Translation AGlobe and MailMost Anticipated Spring TitleDon QuixotemeetsWho Framed Roger Rabbitin this slapstick epic about destiny, family demons, and revenge.1911. A hockey game in Quebecs Gasp Peninsula. With the score tied two-two in overtime, local tough guy Billy Joe Pictou fires the puck directly into Monti Bouges mouth. When Pictous momentum carries them both across the goal line in a spray of shattered teeth, Victor Bradley, erstwhile referee and local mailman, rules that the goal countsand Montis ensuing revenge for this injustice sprawls across three generations, one hundred years, and dozens of dastardly deeds. Fuelled by a bottomless supply of Yukon, the high-proof hooch that may or may not cause the hallucinatory sightings of a technicolor beast that haunts not just Monti but his descendants, its up to Montis grandson Franoisand his floundering doctoral dissertationto make sense of the vendetta thats shaped the destiny of their town and everyone in it. Brilliantly translated into slapstick English by Lazer Lederhendler,The Hollow Beastintroduces Christophe Bernard as a master of epic comedy.Praise forThe Hollow Beast[A] big, high octane novel . . . Thomas Pynchon meets Rabelais andDon QuixotemeetsWho Framed Roger Rabbitare two of several crossbreed critical comparisons the book has inspired.Globe and MailIts ambitious . . . [The reader] can tap into the authors manic rhythm and admire the density of the world he creates . . . his technical mastery has generated all kinds of complex flavours, so long as one can stomach the initial shock of the taste.Amanda Perry,Literary Review of CanadaChristophe Bernard reveals himself as a master of epic storytelling.CBC BooksBernard weaves a multicoloured, shimmering tapestry of the Gasp . . . The many threads arent necessarily gathered into a neatly finished selvage by the time the reader gets to the end of the book, but the journey they have been taken on is so immersive, so grounded in a place and the characters that inhabit it, that it hardly matters.Cassandra Drudi,Quill and Quire(starred review)The Hollow Beastis a sprawling story of generational feuds and old hostilities that refuse to die . . . the novel also unfurls like a knowing parody of such epics, blending hallucinatory moments and possibly nonexistent cryptids with a decades-spanning narrative.Tobias Carroll,Words Without BordersWith synapses popping and sparking and sometimes shooting out, the scepticism and disillusionment heard through Bernards words, though darkly amusing in places, underpins serious themes. This pop-culture stream-of-consciousness writing has some distasteful scenes (accurately portrayed), some lucidly penetrable, and some suffering word insanity, but overall displays the originality expected of great art.Fiona Alison,Historical Novel SocietyWhileThe Hollow Beastitself is a beast of a novel, despite its hefty page count it moves along at a leisurely clip, as though the reader is hearing the tall tale around the table at the local pub or late at night in the kitchen during a house party, with the lilt and cadence of an eloquent and well-soused Francophone, peppered throughout with allusions to Quebec history, MetallicasKill Em Alland the Montreal Canadiens, among others.Sheldon Birnie,Winnipeg Free PressLeave[s] a mark on the broader landscape of CanLit. The author travelled far and wide before diving into novel writing, and absorbed important lessons from modern literary greats, channelling his experiences and influences into a singular voice.Open BookIts a long story thats alternately funny and bittersweet, and sometimes feels like a hall of mirrors. But even at its trickiest,The Hollow Beastis a compelling read . . . Bernard is a heck of a storyteller.Roz Milner,The Ex-PuritanFrom rural Quebec, a sprawling, antic, alcohol-soaked family saga centered on a feud with the postman . . . full of slapstick and fresh, lively language and outlandishness . . . its rollicking, inventive fun.Kirkus ReviewsMixing family history with local lore, the satirical novelThe Hollow Beastis a tale of revenge and hauntings.Isabella Zhou,Foreword ReviewsBernards hilarious tome is a hundred-proof fever dream of bizarre scenarios and Canadas most outlandish cast of characters . . . But readers beware. Your technicolor nightmares will be fueled byThe Hollow Beast.Eric Smith,Manhattan Book ReviewA master of epic storytelling,The Hollow Beastis an inherently fascinating saga of a read from start to finish.Midwest Book ReviewQuebecois writer Bernard debuts with a feverish burlesque about a one-time hockey players decades-long dispute with a referee and his grandsons attempts to reverse the family curse . . . Bernards bawdiness and mania credibly evoke Thomas Pynchons flights of invention.Publishers WeeklyA controversial goal at a 1911 hockey game in the Gasp Peninsula leads to a family vendetta that spans more than three generations and 100 years, shaping the destinies of a small town and its inhabitants. WithThe Hollow Beast, translator Lazer Lederhendler brings Quebec author Christophe Bernards 2018 Governor Generals Literary Award-shortlisted novel to English readers.Cassandra Drudi,Quill and QuireChristophe Bernard has hollowed out the past like a beast and, like an alchemist, has excavated a language of pure gold. He has added a great, savage nugget to Quebec literature.La Presse(Montreal)Christophe Bernard scores a huge hit withThe Hollow Beast. . . He gives birth to a sort of crazed novel in the form of a fireworks show . . . Bernard slips into the patchwork skin of a kind of Thomas Pynchon crossbred with Rabelais and Victory-Lvy Beaulieu (with a pint of James Joyce) . . . His writing is flamboyant with vernacular flights. An example of utter mastery.Le Devoir(Montreal)The reader swims in sheer delirium readingThe Hollow Beast, a novel from the Gasp that takes place over several generations. Passionate and unsettling . . . A universe plugged in at 10,000 volts!Radio CanadaA tale with plenty of momentum that covers a whole century and is at once fantastic, funny, cruel, brilliant.Le Journal de MontralA family saga unlike any other . . . And its funny! I envy this writers talent.LActualit(Montreal)