Book
A minor chorus : a novel / Billy-Ray Belcourt.
An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness. What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score. Whether he's meeting with an auntie distraught over the imprisonment of her grandson, engaging in rez gossip with his cousin at a pow wow, or lingering in bed with a married man after a hotel room hookup, the narrator makes space for those in his orbit to divulge their private joys and miseries, testing the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780735242005 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: 182 pages ; 20 cm
- Publisher: [Toronto] : Hamish Hamilton, 2022.
- Copyright: ©2022
Content descriptions
- Bibliography, etc. Note:
- Includes bibliographical references.
- Awards Note:
- Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize winner, 2023.
Search for related items by subject
- Subject:
- Small cities > Alberta, Northern > Fiction.
Authors > Fiction.
Indigenous peoples > Fiction.
Gay men > Fiction.
Alberta, Northern > Fiction.
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Louise Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Louise Public Library | AF BEL (Text) | 36761000142310 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Penguin Putnam
*WINNER OF THE 2023 BC AND YUKON ETHEL WILSON PRIZE*
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE*
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An urgent first novel about breaching the prisons we live inside from one of Canadaâs most daring literary talents.
An unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness.
What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score.
Whether heâs meeting with an auntie distraught over the imprisonment of her grandson, engaging in rez gossip with his cousin at a pow wow, or lingering in bed with a married man after a hotel room hookup, the narrator makes space for those in his orbit to divulge their private joys and miseries, testing the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely.
Populated by characters as alive and vast as the boreal forest, and culminating in a breathtaking crescendo, A Minor Chorus is a novel about how deeply entangled the sayable and unsayable can becomeâand about how ordinary life, when pressed, can produce hauntingly beautiful music.