The Second Substance, Anne Lardeux
The Second Substance, Anne Lardeux
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The Second Substance

Author: Anne Lardeux

Narrator: Trinity Wilcox

Unabridged: 4 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: ECW Press

Published: 06/30/2022


Synopsis

Squatters at a rural gas station try to find freedom and build something new on the ashes of our petrocivilization in this sensual novel. A community of outsiders takes over an abandoned gas station. They spend their days ripping up asphalt, drinking beer and eating hot dogs, and wandering through woods and towns in search of new ways of living. People come and go: a charismatic landscaper, Italian anarchists, a policewoman, travellers. A teenager drifts into homelessness. And The Girl With No Name keeps a journal of her attempts to meet new people and sleep with them, sex that is “not a sideline” but the motivating force in a story she is struggling to understand. Neighbors grow hostile. An investigation threatens the community. Tension builds between the surface violence of “normal life” and the attempt of these outsiders to experience freedom and build something new on the ashes of our oil-addicted society. With a character borrowed from Agnès Varda’s Vagabond and inspiration taken from Anne Boyer’s writings, Anne Lardeux’s highly original debut assembles elements of poetry, film, and visual arts into an exuberant choral novel, an ode to the daughters of fire and to the poetry of the body. Often funny, sometimes raunchy, consistently surprising, never flinching, The Second Substance heralds an important new voice in Quebec literature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sabrina on September 13, 2021

J'ai de la difficulté à bien saisir l'essence de ce livre. J'ai d'abord beaucoup aimé le style d'écriture de l'auteure, mais je trouve que l'histoire s'en allait dans plusieurs directions et était par moment difficile à suivre. Malgré tout, le livre se lit très facilement.......more

Goodreads review by Emma on July 22, 2022

3.5 "Les récits de Gil sont impossibles à suivre selon la logique narrative qui noue ensemble des temps et des espaces. J'apprends à les recevoir comme ils viennent, sans essayer de les organiser en unités continues. Ils tracent des déambulations qui ne finissent jamais mais nomment les paysages au......more

Goodreads review by Valérie on September 02, 2021

"C'est la fin de son shift, elle veut une bière elle veut quitter quand arrive des urgences un drôle de moineau. Une qui flotte plus qu'elle encore dans sa jaquette. Elle jauge l'animal exsangue qu'on pourrait croire à sa fin, mais quelque chose l'attrape dans son souffle brûlant, la vie qui bat jus......more

Goodreads review by Nika on January 19, 2023

sometimes a book is just too experimental......more

Goodreads review by Heather on January 22, 2024

Didn't finish; it didn't feel like it was going anywhere.......more