David Goudreault’s compelling voice in a bold and tragic novel

It has been a long time since a voice has been this compelling. Perhaps since 2002, the year J.S. Foer’s "Everything Is Illuminated" was published. Not because this Bestia di mamma by David Goudreault (Marcos y Marcos, p. 228, €18, translated by Sara Giuliani) resembles it – indeed, it does not; the writer’s character, narrative objectives and trajectories are different, as is, in a certain sense, the depth. Rather, because Goudreault, a Canadian born in 1980, uses the page as a stage for the performance of a voice that is body – that is to say, dynamic matter that moves between the literary and the oral, slang and the canon, rap and literature, flow and density. It is a voice one cannot resist, endowed with a marked flair for performance, which addresses the reader as if they were listening. An undaunted voice, crackling like a nail gun, powerful but not in the sense that literary critics usually mean it – there are no exquisite solos or lyrical subordinate clauses here. If anything, it beats like a drum: a voice that overflows, sweeps you along, rattles off short phrases and then long dissertations delivered in bursts of mood; a voice that loses itself and finds itself again, with a style that rejects literary pretension and yet is, in its own right and without a shadow of a doubt, a novel.

The voice belongs to a protagonist it is impossible not to love: a proper arsehole, a wannabe rapper and sociopath, a rambling insomniac with a thousand obsessions, preconceived notions and verbose visions of himself, all steeped in a sense of moral and intellectual superiority over everyone else. A man addicted to amphetamines, joints and alcohol. An individual whom readers would likely avoid encountering in real life, he nevertheless, through the magic of literature, uses his cynical, opinionated and hyperkinetic voice to guide readers anywhere. The result is an inescapable sound that bewitches and casts a spell. It has happened before, after all: with Philip Roth’s Portnoy, with Mordecai Richler’s Barney, with Foer’s Alex. Is David Goudreault, for his generation, what these authors were for theirs? It is hard to say. What can be said is that Bestia di mamma speaks—and knows how to speak—to everyone: it speaks the language of our times—about time too!—rather than a stilted, wooden one, and it speaks the language of fine fiction when it warmly recounts a micro-epic tale, allowing itself the luxury of subverting and mocking the conventions of the coming-of-age novel.

The story’s catalyst: a deeply troubled mother, a repeat suicide attempt, who forces her son into a series of disastrous upheavals. Their relationship is shaped by the geography of their frequent house moves, dictated by crises and the interventions of social workers. “All my childhood memories,” says the protagonist, “are linked to the names of towns, which in turn are associated with the tragedies that punctuated my youth. Shawinigan: drug overdose and retching. Trois-Rivières-Ouest: the slap that René the tattooed man gave my mother at the entrance to the block of flats. Sainte-Foy: the Xanax overdose and the ambulance ride. Donnacona: the beating from Mario in the middle of the street. And finally, Québec, where the infamous hanging took place.”

The prologue tells us that the protagonist, the Beast, is guilty of murder. “You have found the body. You have all the circumstantial and forensic evidence you need. The case is closed; you have reached your conclusion. But you cannot reach a conclusion without knowing the whole story.”The narrative unfolds to reveal scams, robberies, and utterly despicable schemes orchestrated to reunite him with a mother who has permanently rejected him. “Jesus forgives, I take my revenge,” the Beast declares, shattering every moral code—a Beast with a soul that bleeds, weeps, and longs (desperately longs) to be loved.

Two hundred and thirty pages and not a single line of sentimentality. It is almost enough to move the reader. In an age when writers pose as the righteous, the wise and the virtuous, David Goudreault is not afraid of being mistaken for the ‘I’ that says ‘I’ in this brazen and scathing, bitter and tragic novel, which would come last in any contest of moral beauty. It is almost enough to make one say thank you.