A minor chorus : a novel

A minor chorus A novel

Billy-Ray Belcourt

Book - 2022

"A debut novel from a rising literary star that brings the modern queer and Indigenous experience into sharp relief. In Northern Alberta, a queer Indigenous doctoral student steps away from his dissertation to write a novel. He is adrift, caught between his childhood on the reservation and this new life of the urban intelligentsia. Billy-Ray Belcourt's unnamed narrator chronicles a series of encounters: a heart-to-heart with fellow doctoral student River over the mounting pressure placed on marginalized scholars; a meeting with Michael, a closeted adult from his hometown whose vulnerability and loneliness punctuate the realities of queer life on the fringe. Amid these conversations, the narrator is haunted by memories of Jack, a c...ousin caught in the cycle of police violence, drugs, and survival. Jack's life parallels the narrator's own; the possibilities of escape and imprisonment are left to chance with colonialism stacking the odds. A Minor Chorus introduces the dazzling literary voice of a Lambda Literary Award winner and Canadian #1 national best-selling poet to the United States, shining much-needed light on the realities of Indigenous survival"--

Saved in:
Place a Hold Save to List Email this

1st Floor Show me where

FICTION/Belcourt, Billy-Ray
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
1st Floor FICTION/Belcourt, Billy-Ray Checked In
Subjects
Doctoral students > Fiction.
Sexual minorities > Fiction.
Cree Indians > Fiction.
Alberta, Northern > Fiction.
Novels.
Genres
Novels
Published
New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc [2022]
Language
English
Main Author
Billy-Ray Belcourt (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
162 pages ; 21 cm
ISBN
9781324021421
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Following his essay collection, A History of My Brief Body (2020), poet Belcourt, from the Driftpile Cree Nation, continues his exploration of Indigenous trauma and queerness in this erudite debut novel. An unnamed narrator works on his doctoral dissertation but is drawn to the idea of writing a novel, believing it might be the way to realize a new world, "one in which human flourishing wasn't inhibited for the marginalized, which seemed as urgent an act of rebellion as any." Focusing on the place he left--at the time, leaving seemed the only option for a queer teen--he returns to his rural Canadian hometown. He interviews friends and family, revisits his difficult relationship with his mom, and confronts the reality of his cousin, currently in prison after being caught in a web of drugs. In between, he has casual sex, analyzing the differences between rural and urban Grindr profiles and hookups. Belcourt's smart, thoughtful writing will appeal to readers who prize introspection over plot, and is also a great crossover for memoir readers.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Memoirist Belcourt (A History of My Brief Body) delivers an achingly gorgeous debut novel of Indigenous survival. The unnamed narrator, a 24-year-old queer Cree graduate student living in Edmonton, Alberta, has stalled on his dissertation in critical theory. He decides to leave the program and return home to northern Alberta to write a novel. For research, he interviews locals, including a great-aunt whose grandson has been arrested and a newspaper editor who never came out as gay after losing his first love to suicide. Even the narrator's depiction of a hookup with a visiting white man veers into a precise, insightful excavating of trauma. A trip to the nearby residential school sparks an unpleasant encounter with an entitled white woman before the narrator returns to Edmonton for one last interview. Belcourt weaves in a steady stream of references to work by Judith Butler, Roland Barthes, and Maggie Nelson without losing narrative momentum, and he delivers incendiary reflections on the costs, scars, and power of history and community. This is a breathtaking and hypnotic achievement. (Oct.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

A Lamba Literary Award winner and Canada's top-selling poet (see the LJ best-booked NDN Coping Mechanisms), Belcourt crafts a debut novel about a queer Indigenous doctoral student in Northern Alberta who temporarily deserts his dissertation to write a novel. Meanwhile, he converses with the closeted Michael and fellow student River and ponders a cousin trapped in the awful cycle of police violence, drugs, and despair.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Similar Items