Songs for the Cold of Heart

by Éric Dupont, Peter McCambridge (Translator)

Nuns that appear out of thin air, a dinner party at the Goebbels’, Quebec’s very own Margaret Thatcher, a grandma that just won’t die (not until the archangel comes back)... Songs for the Cold of Heart is a yarn to rival the best of them, a big fat whopper of a tall tale that bounces around from provincial Rivière-du-Loup in 1919 to Nagasaki, 1990s Berlin, Rome, and beyond. This is the novel of a century—long and glorious, stuffed full of parallels, repeating motifs, and unforgettable characters—with the passion and plotting of a modern-day Tosca.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Canada, Historical, France, Literary Fiction, Book Club

608 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2012

About the author

Eric Dupont est né à Amqui (Gaspésie) en 1970. Il est l'auteur de Voleurs de sucre
(2004), La Logeuse (2006), Bestiaire (2007) et La Fiancée américaine (2012). Il enseigne la traduction à l'Université McGill. // Eric Dupont is an author, teacher and translator who lives in Montreal. His French-language novel La Logeuse won the Combat des livres. He was a finalist for both the Prix littéraire France-Québec and the Prix des cinq continents. He was the winner of the Prix littéraire des collégiens and the Prix des libraires. His fourth novel, The American Fiancée, published in Canada as Songs for the Cold of Heart by QC Fiction, was on the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist and was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for translation. (Photo credit: Justine Latour.)

Reviews

[Penny (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a prize that awards the best in Canadian fiction, the Giller Prize should easily go to Songs for the Cold of Heart! Amazing fiction and storytelling, and the translation is impeccable - it maintained the eloquence and lyricism in Dupont's writing.

This is very John Irving-esque - if you loved A Prayer for Owen Meany, Hotel New Hampshire and The World According to Garp you should most certainly fall in love with Songs for the Cold of Heart.

It brings in the opera, Tosca, often - I need to go and look into that more because I'm sure the many references to it will deepen the meaning of it against the story in the book. Know what I mean? And perhaps look into the meaning behind the bass clef - that too is mentioned often.

I loved it, and the storytelling inside was amazing. For me, even though I haven't read any of the other 2018 Giller shortlisted titles, Songs for the Cold of Heart is the winner.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

After a strong start, this devolved into a cesspool of incoherent, inane nonsense that added up to nothing worth continuing with. At about the 40% mark an abortion doctor slips on a pressed rose once belonging to Callas while chasing the girl whose bass clef birthmark had distracted him from the abortion he was to provide: giving zero you-know-whats about any of it, I did too. Aborted, that is. Just awful.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing is so foreign to the heart of a tormented lover than seeing the pain of absence disappear, as though her heart had been fuelled by this angst ever since she first laid eyes on Madeline from behind the willow hedge. Now she would have to work on getting the ban lifted on visiting the Lamontagne house. The two girls threw snowballs at each other and slid along Rue Fraserville's steep sidewalks, breaking into a song for the cold of heart as they revelled in winter's arrival right down to the very last snowflake.

I get that people are saying that Songs for the Cold of Heart is reminiscent of John Irving – it starts with the far-fetched and ironic tone of A Prayer for Owen Meany or The Hotel New Hampshire; the latter of which author Éric Dupont references outright – but it soon turns into a different kind of book; soon after that, turning into another (and at six hundred small font pages, there's room enough here for several distinct works). So, while I found that first part to be the most entertaining, and found the whole to be a bit too long, I liked all of the parts in different ways. I'm delighted that this book made the Giller Prize shortlist – it might not have come to my attention otherwise – and I wouldn't mind seeing it win.

You know you're in love the moment you walk up to someone trembling, I'd think to myself. And since I associated trembling with the freezing cold, having grown up in East Prussia, I associated love, that awful feeling, with the sumptuous winters of my native land. You're the only one in Berlin who could know what I mean by that, Kapriel. You need to feel all the coldness of that music. I think it's a song for the cold of heart. For people like us, Kapriel. “I wait for you, trembling”. Words to be sung in despair, one last cry from the heart, a petition of sorts. Do you follow me? It takes someone familiar with the body's tremors, the inexplicable bumps and jolts of the nervous system, to understand Schubert.

In the first part of Songs for the Cold of Heart, we meet Louis “the Horse” Lamontagne: a former travelling fairground strongman, now working as a mortician in his hometown of Rivière-du-Loup, whose children know that a glass of warm gin is all it takes to get their Papa telling tales of his youthful exploits. Everything from the incredible story of Louis' birth to his conscription into the American Army during WWII makes you wonder if Louis isn't pulling his children's legs just a bit. In the next part, Louis' daughter Madeline is shown growing up in an age that sees the Catholic Church begin to lose its grip on Quebec and this part is much less lighthearted: eventually rejecting her parents and her small-town life, Madeline goes on the become a famous restaurateur who refuses to share stories about her family or childhood with her own children. In the third part, as the new millennium approaches, Madeline's estranged son, Gabriel, has moved to Berlin in a rejection of his heritage, and unwittingly befriends an old woman who might hold the key to where he came from. Told mostly in letters and diary form, this third section really does feel like a different book, but with so many details repeated throughout – Polish giants, gold crosses, and mustachioed popes; teal eyes, bass clef birthmarks, a Madeline (or is that a Magda?) in every generation – it all ties together into one big, epic whole.

If the themes of this book could be condensed into two quotes, they would be:

When an outside force takes control of your body, it's fascism. Or its toned-down version: Catholicism.

And:

While ordinary love is cruel, Puccinian love is merciless.

It's interesting that Dupont chose as his main characters a French Canadian family with German roots. On the one hand, Dupont never misses a chance to mock the Catholic clergy – whether corpulent or manipulative priests, an archbishop who wants to meet a young leotarded Louis for deviant purposes, or poor old Sister Mary of the Eucharist with her “pale, haunting ugliness”, “a face like a wet weekend” and “a nose as long as a day without bread”. And while the Church famously had control over every aspect of Quebec life for centuries, when Magda begins recalling life in East Prussia under the Nazis, the similarities are clear (and especially with both the Catholics' and the Nazis' obsession with breeding more babies for their causes and rooting out homosexuals). And it's also an interesting choice that throughout the generations, many characters are obsessed with the opera Tosca; this mercilessness of Puccinian love is both talked about and demonstrated, and by the end, this felt more like a tragic opera than a straightforward novel; there are repetitions and coincidences that are believable and inevitable because of this operatic foundation. And all that worked for me – there's value here as a Quebec perspective on the entirety of the twentieth century if nothing else. Maybe a bit too long, but again, the book I like best on the 2018 Giller Prize shortlist.

[Laura Frey (Reading in Bed) · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's probably more of a 4.5, but I'm so into all the echoes of my favorite john Irving book that I can't think straight 😍😍😍

[Edith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5 Failli être un 4/5 mais le bout au milieu avec l'échange de lettres entre les 2 frères m'a pas mal ennuyé. Ces 2 frères me tapaient sur les nerfs. Une chance que l'histoire intéressante de Magdalena Berg venait s'y mêler. J'ai aimé la fin et toute la partie du début jusqu'à ce que les lettres commencent.

Maintenant que j'ai parlé du contenu, parlons du contenant. Je ne comprends pas le choix de grandeur de la police pour ce livre. C'est minuscule. Je sais on va me dire que c'est la même grosseur que les éditions de la Pléiade. Mais l'effet n'est pas du tout le même avec un 2 cm de vide tout autour du texte. J'aurais bien aimé le lire en numérique mais il n'existe pas de version numérique. (Pour un livre publié en 2012, je trouve ça un peu fort, mais bon...) J'ai de bons yeux alors pas de problèmes pour moi, mais ça va en rebuter certains. Au final, pas un livre à lire à la veilleuse! ;)

Il faut que j'exprime mon amour pour la couverture qui me fait rigoler. C'est une peinture dont le titre est "I Was Alright Until I Fell in Love With You". Que j'interprète toujours en : depuis que je suis en amour avec toi, je fais plein de trucs bizarres, genre monter des chevreuils.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Je ne sais par où commencer ni comment rendre justice à ce roman qui m'a happée dès les premières lignes et gardée en haleine jusqu'à la toute fin. Foglia avait écrit : "C'est une histoire, en fait 40 histoires enchevêtrées, qui vont de Rivière-du-Loup à New York, à Berlin, à Rome, au Japon, à Montréal." Autant d'histoires captivantes et habilement ficelées qu'on ne veut pas quitter. À chaque fois que je devais refermer le livre avant de sonner mon arrêt d'autobus le matin en route vers le boulot, je trouvais la séparation cruelle. Tout m'a plus, y compris les destinées invraisemblables comme celle de Madeleine-la-Mére qui refuse de mourir. J'ai apprécié les clins d'oeil historiques aux foires américaines avec les spectacles d'hommes forts, les excursions risquées des Québécoises qui allaient se faire avorter clandestinement aux États-Unis dans les cliniques new-yorkaises et la mémoire de celles qui ont subi la Deuxième guerre mondiale en Europe de l'est. Total coup de foudre littéraire.

[Peter McCambridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been in the works for a long time, but SONGS FOR THE COLD OF HEART, my translation of Eric Dupont's "La Fiancée américaine," is finally out today!

[Allison ༻hikes the bookwoods༺ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a long book with remarkable storytelling and a complex web of characters spanning four generations and multiple countries. I enjoyed it so much, I would love to read it again someday, now that I know how everything comes together in the end.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a pretty ferocious reader i sometimes can pound through a book in a day or two, a week at most. But that isn't necessarily the best approach for every book and that certainly is the case for grand family sagas like Eric Dupont's Giller shortlisted tome, Songs for the Cold of Heart, which I took a good two months to finish.

Following a small town Quebecois family, the Lamontanges, from the First World War to turn of the Century, Dupont pays homage to how we recount our past, how we tell our stories. Told as fire side storytime to children, correspondences between brothers, second hand retelling of adventures or experiences during grand world events, Dupont highlights how important recounting our pasts is to the identities we create for ourselves. Be it fantastical stories of strongmen in early 20th century carnivals, the enduring presence of deceased grandmothers, the amazing emergence of a billionaire businesswoman, or survival during the end of days of WW2, Dupont creates a wonderful family tale, one that is best consumed slowly to truly appreciate the grand scope of the tale.

A fantastic introduction to Dupont and definitely would have been a worthy winner of the Giller.

[Rochelle Hickey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where to begin... first, this book is a beast. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a long book but this one dragged to the point where I almost gave up multiple times but stuck with it hoping it would get better. Each chapter is around 100 pages and is a different story that is loosely connected to the previous one or will be connected at the end.

After reading 664 pages I have no sympathy for any character except Magdalena Berg who’s story disembarks from the main storyline and takes up about a third of the book. I wish this book was about her and her WWII journey instead of the Lamontagne plot. It could easily be expanded to be its own feature novel.

The title, The American Fiancée, is misleading. The “American fiancée” is a mysterious woman whom the grandmother brings over from America to Canada in early 1900s to marry her son. She doesn’t speak French so no one really interacts with her and then she dies in childbirth and the rest of the story stems off from her son. She merely acts as a beginning to the story but the cross necklace she wears as a protection makes it to the end.

Almost every woman gets pregnant as a plot point to their story, except for Irene who decides she doesn’t want anymore children and is shunned by the church and the community. The American, Madeleine (her granddaughter), Terese Bleibtreau, Tante Clara, and Anamarie all have pregnancies that effect their stories and it became tiring.

There are some good story points but as a whole things jump too far to really feel cohesive and there are too many things (births, necklaces, bass clef moles, Tosca, teal eyes, twins, etc) that link too many people that it feels like a jumbled web that got caught in the wind. Each story is told in either first-, second-, or even third-hand and it’s all too much.

My recommendation would be to skip and find another epic novel to read.

Thank you to HarperVia: An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers for an advanced copy for my honest and unbiased opinion.

[Véronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je suis tombée amoureuse de presque tous les personnages de cette saga familiale très riche en références et en rebondissement (je suis un peu une fan d'opéra et le récit avait tout pour me plaire). La résolution est magnifique à beaucoup d'égard, mais j'ai quand même été un peu déçue par le peu de place au final qu'occupe la fiancée américaine du titre. Je suis un peu partagée aussi par le virage que prend le récit à travers les époques; d'un côté, j'y vois un hommage à l'Amélanchier de Ferron (structure et style similaire), mais de l'autre, je crois qu'il aurait pu s'agir de 2 romans distincts, ce malgré les nombreux fils dénoués (ou raccordés!) à la fin.

[Natalia Provolo · Rating 2 out of 5]

omg I finally finished! what a weird long book with so many details and stories that somewhat connected at the end. there were some interesting parts throughout but mostly it felt like it dragged on and wasn't sure the point of some parts.

[QC Fiction · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming soon as Songs For The Cold Of Heart from QC Fiction.

[Kimmyanne Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

Un terroir recyclé où le traditionalisme semble vouloir s'empiéter dans le reste de l'oeuvre qui voulait pourtant valoriser la modernité.

En fait, l'appartenance religieuse et sa persistance m'a profondément énervée tout au long du récit. L'homosexualité réprimée de Solange en est un élément que je trouve sincèrement que nous ne devrions plus retrouver dans les romans du XXIième siècle. Un véritable terroir, qui délaisse un peu trop la culture québécoise par contre.

En effet, les personnages connaissaient leur gloire et leur apogée À L'EXTÉRIEUR du Québec, ce qui rend le récit un peu désuet, et ne nous permet pas de nous identifier aux personnages en tant que québécois. La virée malsaine capitaliste du personnage qui semblait attachant à ses débuts rompt l'enchantement qui aurait pus persister avec le romantisme de Rivière-du-Loup.

Non, sincèrement, un roman trop long, trop traditionnel, avec des liens qui nous tannent un peu à la longue. Un roman de chevet, que nous lisons avant de s'endormir, justement pour mieux s'endormir. Les pages se tournent lentement, le rythme de la lecture n'est pas effréné.

Pourtant, je dois nettement féliciter la recherche historique et culturelle de l'auteur. C'est une fresque et un monument d'une richesse incomparable en ce qui a trait aux références, ça, je dois le lui offrir.


Pour avoir faire parti du jury du prix littéraire des collégiens je suis fortement déçue que ce livre aie gagné alors que d'autres excentriques, qui eux marquent la rentrée littéraire et la modernité, aient été détrônés.

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I accidentally mismarked this as DNF, but OMG I finished it.. and can I get a THANK GOD here?

The story is about a French Canadian family that covers the entire 20th century. There were parts of it that were funny and engaging and some of the generations in modern time were not as engaging as the first Madeline's. The book is centered in Quebec and the characters are mostly Canadian, but there is that one American fiancee thrown with her cookbook.

The book's plot is amazing and certainly is a read... you can't dash through this book or you will miss most of it. There are 4 generations covered and much is learned through saved letters handed down from generation to generation. Like many old families, there were secrete kept and discretely revealed.. I think because of the translations, the humor is exaggerated...

I loved the first section of the book, and how the family accepted and then didn't accept newcomers. I loved the births, the deaths, and the tears. There is flair and showmanship in this book, you won't forget it.

4 stars

Happy Reading!

22. A family saga

[Julie Dionne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vraiment un des meilleurs livres que j'aie lu depuis longtemps. J'adore ce type d'histoire, mosaïque historique et interculturelle, enchevêtrement de vies sur 5 générations. Après à peine 20 pages, j'étais capturée, j'ai laissé de coté un sommeil qui aurait pourtant été le bienvenu pour finir cette saga.
Je finis ce livre avec le goût de le recommencer. L'histoire étant très échevelée, il y a une certaine difficulté à replacer chaque histoire dans son contexte général. Les répétitions sont utilisées avec finesse, menant le lecteur sur une piste qui l'aidera à établir des liens entre la branche québécoise et la branche allemande de cette histoire.
JE suis certaine que j'En ai laissé filer, et je me donne une semaine avant de reprendre ma lecture :).
Merci M. Dupont pour ce bijou.

[Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

À la fois ébloui et un peu déçu, à l’issue de cette lecture.

Complètement épaté par le talent brut, la plume audacieuse, la vive intelligence d’Éric Dupont. Un phénomène!

En revanche, pas si séduit que ça par l’empilage burlesque de ce roman et sa folle démesure. C’est très tarabiscoté pour un récit qui s’étire aussi longuement. J’en ai pris plein la gueule de ces anecdotes fleuries au détour de chaque phrase, créatives certes, mais excessives aussi; je m’en suis lassé, d'ailleurs assez rapidement.

Il s’agit cependant d’un bémol davantage que d’un désaveu, et je peux très bien concevoir que le style enchante d’autres lecteurs, de la première page à la toute dernière. Ça regorge d’ingéniosité, ce machin.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't decide between 4 and 5 stars, so I'm settling on 4.5. The publisher's characterization of this book as "a big fat whopper of a tale" is apt. It's a long, meandering, but thoroughly agreeable, entertaining journey through several generations of a family from rural Quebec -- sometimes historical fiction, sometimes magical realism. The shift to epistolary narrative part way through the book was a little jarring and unexpected, but then again, so is the story of the Lamontagnes as a whole. Reminiscent to me of a little Margaret Laurence, a smidge Mordecai Richler. Really enjoyed this book.

[Ylenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[MargaretDH · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm reading this shamefully late. I intended to read it in 2018 when it was on the Giller shortlist. But I was having a hard time finding a copy (I didn't want to shell out full price for the hard cover, which was foolish of me), and between the vagaries of life and library holds, I'm just getting around to it 2 years late. And I'm so sorry that I waited this long to read it, because Songs for the Cold of Heart is wonderful.

This is a French Canadian family saga, stretching almost the entire length of the 20th century, and interwoven with religious and operatic motifs and themes. Though Quebec is the centre of the book, our characters travel to Toronto, New York, Berlin and Rome, and Tosca, Puccini and the Catholic Church constant drivers and shapers of those characters.

Dupont is a wonderful writer, beginning his 4 generation story with family stories that have the element of the tall tale and slowly merging through time shifts into an exchange of letters between twin brothers that makes up the final third of the book. The tone shift is smooth, and Dupont's prose changes to suit. I loved all the musical and operatic allusions, even though I don't know much about opera, and I'm not terribly familiar with Tosca, which is constantly present in the story. But the motifs of secret keeping, inescapable fate, and doomed and obsessive love run through the book. Slowly, Dupont reveals more about the past of this family, and slowly we are able to understand the whole picture of the Lamontagnes.

He's also got some turns of phrase I loved, like calling a nose as long as a day without bread. I don't have any way to judge it other than my own enjoyment, but it seems like a good translation.

This reminded me of Fall on Your Knees, a book Dupont even references in the text. But where Fall on Your Knees is almost entirely grim, Dupont's book has moments of levity. I laughed reading this book, but I also almost cried more than once. And even though the characters seem so real, we never quite lose the element of exaggeration and tall tale of the first section. This book is operatic, after all. In that sense, it also reminded me of A Trip to the Stars, and for it's tragic sensibility. If you're looking to expand your reading of translated literature, or you'd like a big, expansive book to tuck into, please read this. It was great, and I wish it had won the Giller.

[Peter McCambridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

LA FIANCÉE AMÉRICAINE has long been on my mind and in my heart. Now it's at last on its way out into the world in my translation as SONGS FOR THE COLD OF HEART, a finalist for the 2018 Giller Prize. qcfiction.com

[Mary Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A whopping great story, that twists and turns, and keeps secrets until they are ripened. It is not for the faint of heart who quit a large canvas too quickly, but is for those who like a big book of the mostly real mixed with mysteries of the human heart.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beat me at the 25% mark I'm afraid. I should have known I'd never get through anything this long.
Having said that, I can see some people LOVING this. It is a very detailed - and beautifully translated - family drama that celebrates great storytelling.
But it is MASSIVE.

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai tellement aimé me plonger dans l'univers de toutes ces Madeleine. Tellement d'histoires qui s'entremêlent, mais en même temps, tout est clair. Certains passages sont plus longs, mais j'ai adoré ma lecture.

[Rachel Dziver · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish this book and not sure I will. Way too long for the storey that was being told. Hard time keeping engaged.

[Ian M. Pyatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story and did enjoy how the various story-lines intertwined with each other, be it the past or present, but found the book about 150 pages to long and could only read 50 or 60 pages per day and did have to take a day off between reads as well.

Plus, I almost stopped reading after the first 100 pages or so as it seemed to take a long time for the story to evolve & thought it really seemed like it was truly on old Quebecois folk tale one would present around a campfire or old stove in a kitchen, but then it took hold of me.

Obviously the restaurant success story of Madeline was similar to Cora's in Montreal & the breakfast tray poster description that was in the lobby of Madeline's corporate office is a direct tribute to the album cover of Breakfast in America album by Supertramp.

[Isabelle Boutin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toute une saga que ce livre raconte l'histoire des Lamontagne et de leurs nombreuses Madeleines au cours du 20e siècle. J'ai beaucoup aimé l'écriture de l'auteur, l'humour cachée dans les moments plus sérieux et le réalisme magique saupoudré ici et là. Ça m'a beaucoup rappelé 100 ans de solitude même si l'histoire n'est pas du tout la même. La fin était particulièrement satisfaisante et je crois que j'oserai un jour le relire pour bien saisir tous les petits détails qui m'ont échappé.

[Maddie O. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley.

This book was a whirlwind and I almost gave up on it part of the way through, but I’m so glad I stayed the course. It all comes together in the end and I’ll be thinking about it for a while.

[Elizabeth (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sprawling story that’s beautifully written, with a superb cast of characters. I only have two complaints. One, the ending was a blur. After spending almost 700 pages with this family, the book’s close was so abrupt that it felt like a slap. Two, some of my questions were not answered, leaving me feeling slightly frustrated. Overall though, I did enjoy this novel very much, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to sink into a lengthy book.

[QC Fiction · Rating 5 out of 5]

SONGS FOR THE COLD OF HEART is firmly in the QC Fiction tradition of fun, well-written, page-turning fiction. Out today!

And the advance praise has been pouring in too...

“Wildly ambitious in scope and structure, Dupont’s novel (originally titled La Fiancée américaine) mostly succeeds in throwing many balls into the air and having each land where it has the most impact. Readers may be tempted to start the book again to pick up all the clues they missed the first time through. The entire work is a testament to the power, and pitfalls, of storytelling. Through exaggeration, selective memory, and perspective, whose version of the story can we believe? VERDICT Highly recommended.” (Library Journal)

“If you have any interest at all in current Quebec literature, you owe it to yourself to investigate this epic, operatic tale of the Lamontagne family’s odyssey from early-20th-century Rivière-du-Loup to the battlefields of Europe and beyond.” (Ian McGillis, Montreal Gazette)

“an epic, rambling, decades-spanning, vastly entertaining book. (…) If you read only one fiction book this year, make it this one. ★★★★★” (James Fisher, Miramichi Reader)

“Dupont is too subtle and innovative a writer just to iterate such symmetries for the sake of pleasing design; each recurrence resonates in a cunningly different way, wrong-footing and intriguing the reader, and springing further surprises. He’s a consummate, exuberant storyteller who, like all the great ones, from Chaucer and Cervantes to Borges, employs symbolic, traditional stories to tell profound truths about the human condition.

This novel warms the heart.

I can’t finish without a word of praise to the translator. Peter McCambridge has produced that rarity—a translation that doesn’t sound like one.” (Simon Lavery, Tredynas Days)

“rich, vibrant, memorable prose … a saga well worth telling and retelling.” (★★★★★, Foreword Reviews)