The Longest Year

by Daniel Grenier, Pablo Strauss (Translator)

Overview

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” meets Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in Daniel Grenier’s epic novel, which tells the story of a boy who ages only one out of every four years.

There’s something extraordinary about Thomas Langlois.

Thomas is a young boy growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with a French-Canadian father, Albert, and an American mother, Laura. But beyond the fact that he lives between two cultures and languages, there’s something else about Thomas that sets him apart: he was born on February 29.

Before Albert goes on a strange quest to find out more about their mysterious relative, Aimé Bolduc, he explains to Thomas that he will only age one year out of every four and he will outlive all of his loved ones.

Thomas’s loneliness grows and the years pass until a terrible accident involving a young girl sets in motion a series of events that link the young girl and Thomas to Aimé Bolduc — a Civil War–era soldier and perhaps their contemporary.

Spanning three centuries and set against the backdrop of the Appalachians from Quebec to Tennessee, The Longest Year is a magical and poignant story about family history, fateful dates, fragile destinies, and lives brutally ended and mysteriously extended.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487001537
Publisher:	House of Anansi Press
Publication date:	08/07/2018
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

DANIEL GRENIER was born in Brossard, Quebec, in 1980. His debut short story collection, Malgré tout on rit à Saint-Henri was published in 2012, and his first novel, L’anée la plus longue (The Longest Year), won the Prix littéraire des collégiens and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for French Fiction, the Prix des libraires, and the Prix littéraire France-Québec. Grenier has also translated numerous English-language works into French. He lives in Quebec City.

PABLO STRAUSS grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, and has lived in Quebec City for a decade. His translation of Daniel Grenier’s The Longest Year was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation.

Read an Excerpt

They’d left Red Clay at the Tennessee border in late May, over six-thousand strong, after first militia and then regular corps men appeared in their villages, practically right in their homes, making it abundantly clear that this business had gone on long enough. Eight years they’d been given to leave of their own free will. Now five weeks later they were closing in on the Ohio River. They’d have to cross with several hundred head of livestock and wagons packed with keepsakes, chests, and mattresses. Even in defeat they were proud Indians, warriors, and tribal chiefs. They still spoke with their heads held high. They’d left their dead behind, stripped naked, and were now weighed down by what few possessions they’d managed to save. They’d been warned the ferryman would jack up the fares at the crossing. They weren’t pioneers joining the gold rush, or settlers looking for farmland. They were savages.

A couple hours earlier he himself had had a short discussion with a few young Cherokee about the danger of talking back or questioning the fares. In a tone that was respectful, but perhaps not as firm as he would have liked, he’d tried to warn them that any stunt they pulled was sure to backfire. There would be wounded; there would be a massacre. Weapons had been confiscated long before they set off. There were just too many soldiers. The nostrils of one of the Indians flared while they talked and a red violence flushed over his whole face, free of makeup and war paint. He knew the young man had to hold back to refrain from killing him then and there, could see the muscles tensing all along his arm and his wrist, fingers clenched tight around a walking stick he’d fashioned from a branch. The wood was polished smooth, worn down at the end, ready to break in several spots. See, there’s nothing to do but accept the ferryman’s terms. They all knew it was just one more trial to measure their will and courage, test their determination to not disappear, fade away and cede everything to this European civilization with its myths of new beginnings. It was just the latest in a long series of trials and tribulations that would go on for generations in the long time of the mountains, and it was up to them, honourable members of an ancient people, to rise to them. That’s what he’d told them. He almost believed it. In the meantime, like the other whites paid handsomely by the State of Georgia and the State of Tennessee, he walked alongside them, kept them safe, made sure it all proceeded smoothly.

Twelve-hundred miles farther out lay the fertile lands granted by presidential decree in 1830. They would remain Indian Territories for all time, according to the most plausible scenario and the treaties ratified by Congress and the Senate. Everyone knew the United States would never reach that far west of the Mississippi.

As he put his boot back on he heard a high-pitched shrieking. Behind him a gathering had formed, a ways back from the convoy on the edge of a stand of trees. Raised voices, women’s voices, shrill cries in a dialect unrecognizable to him, a thousand miles away from his native French and adopted English and his smattering of Innu. He went to look, rifle drawn. Fifty people were crammed into a tightly packed circle around two men fighting. He broke through the crowd, giving onlookers a nudge in the ribs with his gun barrel or his shoulders and clearing a path toward the commotion of raised fists.

In the centre of the circle, surrounded by clouds of dust that formed an almost opaque roof over the altercation, a massive Cherokee warrior, stripped to the waist, was kicking a young Chocktaw in the gut. His long black braid swung like a metronome behind his back, brushing his shoulder blades with every blow. The young man put up no resistance, just kept tucking further into himself. Blood flowed freely from his nose and only by its red colour could we tell him apart from the ground where his form blended in with the dried earth. He could barely move to defend or protect himself. Close to his outstretched arm lay a piece of black bread. After a short break to catch his breath, the Cherokee swung back around and lifted up his leg. Shod in wood-soled boots, he bent his knee and pounded his foot down on the other man’s jaw, unjointing it in a single blow and leaving his rival dead in a picture of grotesque asymmetry.

When he saw this he yelled “Stop it! Now!” But no one heard. His hands were wet on the rifle butt. The storm was approaching. No one took any heed, the cries grew louder, the circle closed up around the fighters: one standing upright as the other came to pieces. Behind this scene the convoy marched on, breathing as one in their shared fatigue.

When he turned around we saw a face of indeterminate age, at once that of a boy and an old man, an old knotty soul still capable of unselfconscious laughter or descanting at length on the past of his ancestors. We saw him close his eyes, wondered what he was doing there, one-on-one with his history and memories in the middle of this blood-drunk crowd, people on the march and in tears and ready to slaughter their neighbour over a hunk of bread.

He turned around and asked himself what he was doing there, and we can’t help but second the notion, can’t help but share in his doubts, his ghosts, his nightmares.

Because there’s no way he could have been there. At that time, that exact moment in July 1838, under that troubled sky on the American grasslands where the Cherokee were on the march, he was somewhere else. Almost all the sources confirm it.

What People are Saying About This

Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author Sean Michaels

A leap year of a book: the kind that comes rarely. Grenier’s prose is tough, vibrant, and occasionally bloody, with a wit — and a grace — that recalls George Saunders or Rachel Kushner.

author of Hail Galarneau! Jacques Godbout

As a reader, I was charmed by [the] characters Aimé, Jeanne, Thomas, Van Ness, and the others, by their unexpected apparitions and disappearances. They are ghosts born of a magnificent well-documented imagination. [Grenier] is a great talent, [he] possesses a major voice, the invention of Quebec literature in 1958 flourishes thanks to [his] work. Only a genius like Réjean Ducharme could take umbrage, but no other novelist of my generation was able to undertake such a novel.

author of The Heart Laid Bare Michel Tremblay

The Longest Year by Daniel Grenier is a magnificent novel featuring a character who is born on February 29 and is witness to 260 years of history in the United States and Quebec. Fascinating. Superbly written.

author of Chez L’arabe Mireille Silcoff

The breadth of The Longest Year is very satisfying, the intimacy even more so. This is an addictive book. And the reason it is addictive is the warm, intelligent, empathic, enveloping voice of Daniel Grenier. Here is an author who excels in lyricism and is unafraid to tell a good, big story. Daniel Grenier is a rare breed: an old soul overflowing with youthful energy.

author of Arvida Samuel Archibald

The Longest Year is a tall tale for the 21th century — insanely inventive, insightful, and moving, at times funny and at times horrifying, epic in scope and yet very intimate in its knowledge of the human heart. Its ideas about life and time, as well as its larger than life characters, will stay with the reader for a while.

From the Publisher

Praise for Daniel Grenier and The Longest Year:



National Post 99 Best Book of the Year

Governor General’s Literary Award for French Fiction Finalist

Prix littéraire des collégiens Winner

Prix des libraires Finalist

Prix littéraire France-Québec Finalist

A Le Devoir Best Book of the Year


“The stories, with their elements of magic, are endlessly fascinating and extraordinary in their breadth of imagination . . . Irresistibly readable.” — Booklist, STARRED REVIEW



“A leap year of a book: the kind that comes rarely. Grenier’s prose is tough, vibrant, and occasionally bloody, with a wit — and a grace — that recalls George Saunders or Rachel Kushner.” — Sean Michaels, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author



“The Longest Year is a tall tale for the 21th century — insanely inventive, insightful, and moving, at times funny and at times horrifying, epic in scope and yet very intimate in its knowledge of the human heart. Its ideas about life and time, as well as its larger than life characters, will stay with the reader for a while.” — Samuel Archibald, author of Arvida



“The Longest Year by Daniel Grenier is a magnificent novel featuring a character who is born on February 29 and is witness to 260 years of history in the United States and Quebec. Fascinating. Superbly written.” — Michel Tremblay, author of The Heart Laid Bare



“The breadth of The Longest Year is very satisfying, the intimacy even more so. This is an addictive book. And the reason it is addictive is the warm, intelligent, empathic, enveloping voice of Daniel Grenier. Here is an author who excels in lyricism and is unafraid to tell a good, big story. Daniel Grenier is a rare breed: an old soul overflowing with youthful energy.” — Mireille Silcoff, author of Chez L’arabe



“As a reader, I was charmed by [the] characters Aimé, Jeanne, Thomas, Van Ness, and the others, by their unexpected apparitions and disappearances. They are ghosts born of a magnificent well-documented imagination. [Grenier] is a great talent, [he] possesses a major voice, the invention of Quebec literature in 1958 flourishes thanks to [his] work. Only a genius like Réjean Ducharme could take umbrage, but no other novelist of my generation was able to undertake such a novel.” — Jacques Godbout, author of Hail Galarneau!



“Written in a stylish narrative voice, conveyed here through an excellent translation by Pablo Strauss…The Longest Year is widescreen historical fiction at its finest. Grenier’s inventive fabrications are richly compelling, and the novel is full of wit, whimsy, and a wellspring of historical detail, both real and imagined.” — Montreal Review of Books



“Last year, Catherine Leroux’s The Party Wall arrived like a revelation: a French-Canadian novel with a continent-sized imagination, about connections between people over borders and across time. . . . [I]n The Longest Year Grenier engages a similar continental imaginary. The novel’s magic realist conceit — that a person born on Feb. 29 might age one year for every four — allows an epic swath of history with sweeping geography to match.” Globe and Mail



“[M]agical . . . spectacular . . . Grenier’s magnum opus . . . The Longest Year is the kind of book you want to tell people about. [Strauss] has masterfully translated L’année la plus longue, Grenier’s genre-volt-face, into The Longest Year — a year so good I wouldn’t mind living it a few times over myself, this novel’s plot begging for another crack.” — National Post



“Ambitious. An epic with dense, controlled writing. Large in scope yet intimate . . . A tour de force that takes us across centuries, past frontiers . . . and doesn’t hesitate to flirt with fantasy.” — Le Devoir



“A solid work . . . magical.” — La Presse



“Grenier’s book is pure genrebending genius. An ambitious story told deftly, it demonstrates an incredible feat of written restraint.” — National Post

Editorial Reviews

Historical fiction at its finest ... full of wit, whimsy, and a wellspring of historical detail

Montreal Review of Books

[M]agical . . . spectacular . . . Grenier’s magnum opus . . . The Longest Year is the kind of book you want to tell people about. [Strauss] has masterfully translated L’année la plus longue, Grenier’s genre-volt-face, into The Longest Year — a year so good I wouldn’t mind living it a few times over myself, this novel’s plot begging for another crack.

The National Post

A solid work . . . magical.

La Presse

Last year, Catherine Leroux’s The Party Wall arrived like a revelation: a French-Canadian novel with a continent-sized imagination, about connections between people over borders and across time. . . . [I]n The Longest Year Grenier engages a similar continental imaginary. The novel’s magic realist conceit — that a person born on Feb. 29 might age one year for every four — allows an epic swath of history with sweeping geography to match.

The Globe and Mail

Ambitious. An epic with dense, controlled writing. Large in scope yet intimate . . . A tour de force that takes us across centuries, past frontiers . . . and doesn’t hesitate to flirt with fantasy.

Le Devoir