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Slow Emergencies: A Novel
Lin has a husband, two daughters, and close friends. But dance is her passion. Inescapably, it imposes itself upon her, until the inevitable moment when she must choose between her family life and the all-consuming world of dance to which she aches to return.
Slow Emergencies conveys an irresistible impulse to create, and illustrates the emotional turmoil that ensues for Lin and her family. Nancy Huston, award-winning author of The Mark of the Angel, writes brilliantly here about the passage of time, the body’s vulnerability, and the solitude of creative endeavor. What results is a deeply felt novel that offers a disquieting but profoundly moving meditation on just what it means to be an artist.
Slow Emergencies conveys an irresistible impulse to create, and illustrates the emotional turmoil that ensues for Lin and her family. Nancy Huston, award-winning author of The Mark of the Angel, writes brilliantly here about the passage of time, the body’s vulnerability, and the solitude of creative endeavor. What results is a deeply felt novel that offers a disquieting but profoundly moving meditation on just what it means to be an artist.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
3 people are currently reading
194 people want to read
About the author
Nancy Huston
115 books315 followers(from Wikipedia)
Huston lived in Calgary until age fifteen, at which time her family moved to Wilton, New Hampshire, USA. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she was given the opportunity to spend a year of her studies in Paris. Arriving in Paris in 1973, Huston obtained a Master's Degree from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, writing a thesis on swear words under the supervision of Roland Barthes.
(Actes Sud)
Née à Calgary (Canada), Nancy Huston, qui vit à Paris, a publié de nombreux romans et essais chez Actes Sud et chez Leméac, parmi lesquels Instruments des ténèbres (1996, prix Goncourt des lycéens et prix du livre Inter), L'empreinte de l'ange (1998, grand prix des lectrices de ElleJ et Lignes de faille (2006, prix Femina).
Huston lived in Calgary until age fifteen, at which time her family moved to Wilton, New Hampshire, USA. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she was given the opportunity to spend a year of her studies in Paris. Arriving in Paris in 1973, Huston obtained a Master's Degree from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, writing a thesis on swear words under the supervision of Roland Barthes.
(Actes Sud)
Née à Calgary (Canada), Nancy Huston, qui vit à Paris, a publié de nombreux romans et essais chez Actes Sud et chez Leméac, parmi lesquels Instruments des ténèbres (1996, prix Goncourt des lycéens et prix du livre Inter), L'empreinte de l'ange (1998, grand prix des lectrices de ElleJ et Lignes de faille (2006, prix Femina).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
September 5, 2019
jesus f---
this keyboard is unfamiliar. i type on my work-provided laptop these days. my fingers hesitate as i type this, uncertain of the layout, the space in which they used to fly: a quotation mark instead of a colon. but this desktop, relic, preserved, dusted every so often, proudly sits on top of the desk i never sit at. i used to. i used to dance in front of images here, blare music and spend hours scrolling websites or typing and typing and writing. now i can't finish a sentence without a mistake.
i lament, endlessly, the loss of time and space. am back in therapy to try to handle it. my life changed in every way: location, career, relationship, passion, goals: within the course of a year. of course i couldn't handle it. of course i forgot how to read.
i am tired of being mad at myself for forgetting myself. i tell myself the forgetting is a growing up, a restructuring, a new architecture of who i always will be. you're still so you! the friends who have always known me say, because i am, but i am completely different. i don't read anymore. i don't hear music anymore. not the same way. i don't teach. i don't recoil from affectionate touch. i lean into my future in a way i was incapable of moving before: i was so afraid of being stuck. i am no longer a victim of inertia. it is a terror, a roiling and viscous terror, to be so free, to feel so right.
it is a horror to lose the past when once it rolled fierce beneath your skin, all prisms and rushes of blood, all the time, all natural. i still collect books, hungry for their promise, but i don't open them on the streetcar, i am four books behind, i never have enough time, i never feel enough when i read to make forcing time into my schedule worthwhile.
growing up, we all lie to ourselves, is worth it; you can buy the $20 bottle of wine for no reason. a saturday barbecue. in therapy i have started talking about nostalgia, about home, about my father. i am so privileged, i am so lucky, i am grateful constantly that i live the life i live right now, that i have changed so drastically, that i will never again hold myself so still.
this book is a memory of how i used to read and feel. i picked it on a whim, putting down another one i'd been struggling to really start, and devoured it in a few hours, firespun all the way through: clicking "heartstopping" when i thought that shelf would start to gather dust like the other relics of my past. typing a lengthy review that should go in a private journal. stone sober, literature-drunk, every fibre all at attention: this matters, this book, everything is about this.
however the thing, the thing, the thing is, i would have picked up absolutely nothing at all about this book, nothing at all!, if i had read it two years ago. it is heartstopping, it is all fire and rage, not because of who i was or who i could get back to being, but exactly exactly exactly because of who i am. the family, the step-parenting, the ache for what was and what could be, the jealousy and the fear and the honest honest HONEST expression of what it means to fucking grow.
if i can type more quickly now that the muscles remember where they used to be, there will still be typos. i don't need many more words now though.
the spine of me is cracking.
this keyboard is unfamiliar. i type on my work-provided laptop these days. my fingers hesitate as i type this, uncertain of the layout, the space in which they used to fly: a quotation mark instead of a colon. but this desktop, relic, preserved, dusted every so often, proudly sits on top of the desk i never sit at. i used to. i used to dance in front of images here, blare music and spend hours scrolling websites or typing and typing and writing. now i can't finish a sentence without a mistake.
i lament, endlessly, the loss of time and space. am back in therapy to try to handle it. my life changed in every way: location, career, relationship, passion, goals: within the course of a year. of course i couldn't handle it. of course i forgot how to read.
i am tired of being mad at myself for forgetting myself. i tell myself the forgetting is a growing up, a restructuring, a new architecture of who i always will be. you're still so you! the friends who have always known me say, because i am, but i am completely different. i don't read anymore. i don't hear music anymore. not the same way. i don't teach. i don't recoil from affectionate touch. i lean into my future in a way i was incapable of moving before: i was so afraid of being stuck. i am no longer a victim of inertia. it is a terror, a roiling and viscous terror, to be so free, to feel so right.
it is a horror to lose the past when once it rolled fierce beneath your skin, all prisms and rushes of blood, all the time, all natural. i still collect books, hungry for their promise, but i don't open them on the streetcar, i am four books behind, i never have enough time, i never feel enough when i read to make forcing time into my schedule worthwhile.
growing up, we all lie to ourselves, is worth it; you can buy the $20 bottle of wine for no reason. a saturday barbecue. in therapy i have started talking about nostalgia, about home, about my father. i am so privileged, i am so lucky, i am grateful constantly that i live the life i live right now, that i have changed so drastically, that i will never again hold myself so still.
this book is a memory of how i used to read and feel. i picked it on a whim, putting down another one i'd been struggling to really start, and devoured it in a few hours, firespun all the way through: clicking "heartstopping" when i thought that shelf would start to gather dust like the other relics of my past. typing a lengthy review that should go in a private journal. stone sober, literature-drunk, every fibre all at attention: this matters, this book, everything is about this.
however the thing, the thing, the thing is, i would have picked up absolutely nothing at all about this book, nothing at all!, if i had read it two years ago. it is heartstopping, it is all fire and rage, not because of who i was or who i could get back to being, but exactly exactly exactly because of who i am. the family, the step-parenting, the ache for what was and what could be, the jealousy and the fear and the honest honest HONEST expression of what it means to fucking grow.
if i can type more quickly now that the muscles remember where they used to be, there will still be typos. i don't need many more words now though.
the spine of me is cracking.
March 3, 2020
Pouco lembrada num rol de escritoras que inclui nomes do quilate de Alice Munro e Margaret Atwood, Nancy Huston é uma autora canadense quase desconhecida no Brasil (dela só havia lido o incrível "Marcas de Nascença", lançado pela L&PM em 2011). Este "Slow Emergencies" é um de seus livros publicados originalmente em francês e traduzidos de próprio punho para o inglês. Dividida em duas partes ("The Soloist" e "The Company"), a narrativa é protagonizada por Lin, uma mulher que tenta conciliar sua carreira como bailarina com as atribulações do matrimônio (o marido Derek e as duas filhas, Angela e Marina).
O romance é, em todos os sentidos, físico: desde a cena de abertura (um nascimento, descrito por Huston com a beleza de uma coreografia e a visceralidade de um parto), até as delicadas cenas de sexo (fun fact: Huston já chegou a "vencer" o "Bad Sex in Fiction Award", conferido pela Literary Review), toda a obra dialoga em forma e conteúdo com o universo de Lin, esta personagem complexa, de difícil manejo. Ao passo que foi abandonada pela própria mãe e parece nutrir o temor de fazer o mesmo com as duas filhas, Lin cultiva por elas um amor profundo e "maternal", mesmo quando submetido à ótica problemática da abnegação.
A tensão sexual entre ela e o poeta Sean Farrel é outro fator que Huston insere na trama como um perturbador da ordem matrimonial: esta convenção contra a qual Lin está inconsciente lutando desde o abandono da mãe até as breves interrupções de sua carreira pelas meninas. Longe de fazer isso de forma canhestra e moralista, ou com um tipo de sororidade apelativa, que clamasse pela adesão do leitor, a narradora (em uma lacônica e afiada terceira pessoa) nos convida a examinar a questão sob um escrutínio que nunca deixa de fora os dramas de cada uma das outras personagens (e do próprio Derek, um protótipo de marido perfeito, professor de filosofia sensível às necessidades profissionais e afetivas de Lin).
A atmosfera que se desprende das páginas é de um gatilho sempre na iminência de ser disparado - e quando o é, na ausência de Lin, o vácuo implacável de sua presença pesa sobre as duas filhas: sobretudo a melancólica Marina, cuja evolução psicológica é algo deslumbrante de ver examinando-se de retrospecto (de uma adulta circunspecta, que segue a cartilha profissional do pai, a uma criança que manifesta em seu cotidiano lúdico a percepção nada obtusa de tudo o que está acontecendo na vida dos pais e da irmã).
O ballet é uma metáfora simbolicamente poderosa para todas as trocas de papéis que se dão no palco da história, de uma grandeza humana inimaginável, explorando a vida, a morte e o papel da arte no meio desse caminho. Dos bastidores do espetáculo, Huston nos espia com um olhar ao mesmo tempo ousado e compassivo, de quem entende que a literatura (como a dança) não é o simples artifício de imitar ou criar a vida, mas de fazê-la compreensível e suportável, por mais que ela pareça quase sempre impossível e absurda.
O romance é, em todos os sentidos, físico: desde a cena de abertura (um nascimento, descrito por Huston com a beleza de uma coreografia e a visceralidade de um parto), até as delicadas cenas de sexo (fun fact: Huston já chegou a "vencer" o "Bad Sex in Fiction Award", conferido pela Literary Review), toda a obra dialoga em forma e conteúdo com o universo de Lin, esta personagem complexa, de difícil manejo. Ao passo que foi abandonada pela própria mãe e parece nutrir o temor de fazer o mesmo com as duas filhas, Lin cultiva por elas um amor profundo e "maternal", mesmo quando submetido à ótica problemática da abnegação.
A tensão sexual entre ela e o poeta Sean Farrel é outro fator que Huston insere na trama como um perturbador da ordem matrimonial: esta convenção contra a qual Lin está inconsciente lutando desde o abandono da mãe até as breves interrupções de sua carreira pelas meninas. Longe de fazer isso de forma canhestra e moralista, ou com um tipo de sororidade apelativa, que clamasse pela adesão do leitor, a narradora (em uma lacônica e afiada terceira pessoa) nos convida a examinar a questão sob um escrutínio que nunca deixa de fora os dramas de cada uma das outras personagens (e do próprio Derek, um protótipo de marido perfeito, professor de filosofia sensível às necessidades profissionais e afetivas de Lin).
A atmosfera que se desprende das páginas é de um gatilho sempre na iminência de ser disparado - e quando o é, na ausência de Lin, o vácuo implacável de sua presença pesa sobre as duas filhas: sobretudo a melancólica Marina, cuja evolução psicológica é algo deslumbrante de ver examinando-se de retrospecto (de uma adulta circunspecta, que segue a cartilha profissional do pai, a uma criança que manifesta em seu cotidiano lúdico a percepção nada obtusa de tudo o que está acontecendo na vida dos pais e da irmã).
O ballet é uma metáfora simbolicamente poderosa para todas as trocas de papéis que se dão no palco da história, de uma grandeza humana inimaginável, explorando a vida, a morte e o papel da arte no meio desse caminho. Dos bastidores do espetáculo, Huston nos espia com um olhar ao mesmo tempo ousado e compassivo, de quem entende que a literatura (como a dança) não é o simples artifício de imitar ou criar a vida, mas de fazê-la compreensível e suportável, por mais que ela pareça quase sempre impossível e absurda.
July 21, 2024
Wow ! J'ai été complètement embarquée par l'histoire, l'écriture, la profondeur de chaque personnage et l'intensité de chacun des 2 chapitres.
July 1, 2009
Comme toujours, j'ai aimé l'écriture de Nancy Huston. Je me suis toutefois senti moins concernée par le sujet (la conciliation entre maternité et aspirations individuelles) que je l'aurais cru. Peut-être à cause du choix extrême que fait le personnage principal... Ceci dit, c'est une réflexion pertinente sur le caractère souvent envahissant et exclusif d'une vraie vocation d'artiste.
January 28, 2009
vague and poorly developed. it felt the auther purposely wrote this in an abstract manner just for the sake of being abstract. it's impossible to like or even understand/empathize with the main character.
January 15, 2022
Lin est danseuse professionnelle, elle aime son mari Derek et ses deux petites filles Angela et Marina, deux enfants désirés, mais qui lui prennent beaucoup de temps, surtout Marina la seconde qui a un caractère difficile. Lin se voulait t-elle réellement mère de famille ? Ou est-elle avant tout une danseuse, dont le corps est le seul véritable moyen d’expression?
L’écriture de Nancy Huston est intimiste : les pensées de Lin virevoltent, le lecteur les attrape au passage comme un voyeur derrière une fenêtre, et découvre des bribes de sa vie au gré de ses humeurs, de ses folies. La ponctuation, l’absence de ponctuation parfois, comme si l’auteure souhaitait mettre en suspens la vie de ses personnages, laisse planer le doute quant à leurs intentions, leurs sentiments et leur choix de vie. Lin partagée entre l’amour pour ses filles et sa passion pour la danse, délaisse peu à peu sa famille. C’est au départ un sentiment ténu, comme une fine pluie maussade, cet amour maternel gracile, puis il s’efface progressivement, submergé par la vague déferlante et passionnée : la danse c’est la raison de vivre de Lin! Le reste devient abject, avilissant, dénué d’intérêt, jusqu’au jour où elle choisit et abandonne sa famille. Les réactions des uns et des autres, la vie qui continue malgré tout, et l’impact de cet abandon sur l’une des deux filles, Marina, enfant difficile, adolescente rebelle devenue une jeune femme surdouée, experte dans l’histoire des camps de concentration…
La condition féminine est le sujet principal de ce roman : comment être femme et mère tout en restant un être à part entière fait de passion, de conviction et de choix personnels. Découvert totalement par hasard dans les rayons d’une bibliothèque, La virevolte est un livre qui a su me surprendre, tant par les sujets évoqués que par le style recherché et terriblement efficace de son auteure.
L’écriture de Nancy Huston est intimiste : les pensées de Lin virevoltent, le lecteur les attrape au passage comme un voyeur derrière une fenêtre, et découvre des bribes de sa vie au gré de ses humeurs, de ses folies. La ponctuation, l’absence de ponctuation parfois, comme si l’auteure souhaitait mettre en suspens la vie de ses personnages, laisse planer le doute quant à leurs intentions, leurs sentiments et leur choix de vie. Lin partagée entre l’amour pour ses filles et sa passion pour la danse, délaisse peu à peu sa famille. C’est au départ un sentiment ténu, comme une fine pluie maussade, cet amour maternel gracile, puis il s’efface progressivement, submergé par la vague déferlante et passionnée : la danse c’est la raison de vivre de Lin! Le reste devient abject, avilissant, dénué d’intérêt, jusqu’au jour où elle choisit et abandonne sa famille. Les réactions des uns et des autres, la vie qui continue malgré tout, et l’impact de cet abandon sur l’une des deux filles, Marina, enfant difficile, adolescente rebelle devenue une jeune femme surdouée, experte dans l’histoire des camps de concentration…
La condition féminine est le sujet principal de ce roman : comment être femme et mère tout en restant un être à part entière fait de passion, de conviction et de choix personnels. Découvert totalement par hasard dans les rayons d’une bibliothèque, La virevolte est un livre qui a su me surprendre, tant par les sujets évoqués que par le style recherché et terriblement efficace de son auteure.
June 7, 2024
Review: Slow Emergencies (original title in French = La Virevolte) by Nancy Huston. Largely the story of Lin, a young woman whose life breath is classic ballet dance. She has a very passionate (no holds barred on the description of their sex lives) marriage to a philosophy professor, Derek. As the story unfolds, she has two daughters who upend her emotional life. She worries constantly that they will die. The first, Angela, is an easy child and through her Lin develops a fierce protectiveness and sense of wonder, little details abounding. The second, Marina, is a difficult crying unhappy kid. Woven through the story of these children achieving typical kiddo milestones is the overwhelming urge to let dance take over her life; it is stronger than any other tug in her existence. Huston's prose is riveting, her observations acute. Other characters do help build the story: there is her best friend from childhood, Rachel, who is morbidly unhappy most of the time, and Sean, who is much of the temperament of Rachel and with whom Lin feels a tremendous attraction... while he feels she is betraying her best self by letting marriage and parenthood stifle her need to express herself through dance. It is a short and powerful read, but not an easy one. I like the French title better, as it seems to encapsulate the warring emotions that take over Lin's life, but the copy I was sent was in English; Nancy Huston does her own translations, which is something I genuinely admire.
May 4, 2017
J'aime peu les romanciers.e.s. contemporain.e.s d'habitude. Genre vraiment pas beaucoup du tout : il faudrait me payer pour me faire lire du Joyce par exemple.
Et la. Je dois dire que j'ai été franchement bluffé par le style. En soit l'histoire n'est pas spectaculaire : c'est une thématique déjà vue et j'avais lu un livre il y a peu traitant du même sujet. Une danseuse décide d'avoir des enfants, qu'elle quitte. On suit parallèlement le destin de cette mère et de ses deux enfants, restés seuls avec leur père.
C'est l'écriture qui m'a bouleversée. Une écriture simple, mais hachée. Très actuelle, sans tabous, et en même temps très poétique.
Constitué de chapitres très courts, ce livre se dévore a une vitesse hallucinante.
Et la. Je dois dire que j'ai été franchement bluffé par le style. En soit l'histoire n'est pas spectaculaire : c'est une thématique déjà vue et j'avais lu un livre il y a peu traitant du même sujet. Une danseuse décide d'avoir des enfants, qu'elle quitte. On suit parallèlement le destin de cette mère et de ses deux enfants, restés seuls avec leur père.
C'est l'écriture qui m'a bouleversée. Une écriture simple, mais hachée. Très actuelle, sans tabous, et en même temps très poétique.
Constitué de chapitres très courts, ce livre se dévore a une vitesse hallucinante.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 20, 2023
Toutes les métaphores et la complexité de chaque personnage captive intensément le lecteur à essayer de comprendre toujours pourquoi. Les images très fortes aussi rendent la lecture très poétique et agréable. Le fait que Lin quitte ses enfants pour se dévouer à sa passion crée une dynamique perturbante, autant pour ses filles, que pour son ex mari, que pour sa meilleure amie. Tout était troublant, mais tout fait également un gros reality check à voir comment on entreprend notre vie d’adulte. Ce roman m’a autant rendue confuse que perturbée. Je reste toutefois sur ma faim, j’aurais aimé seulement savoir la suite.
April 23, 2025
Lin est mariée à Derek, a deux filles, Angela et Marina, et une passion : la danse. Elle va abandonner toute sa famille pour cette passion, laissant deux filles un peu perdues et un mari qui va épouser la meilleure amie de sa femme. L’histoire est somme toute assez banale, mais ce roman est tout en chair, en sécrétions humaines, en muscles, en os, et en maltraitance de ces tissus. J’ai trouvé très organique et viscéral dans le sens premier du terme, et parfois dérangeant. Le roman se termine aussi un peu abruptement, me laissant sur ma faim. J’aime beaucoup Nancy Huston, mais celui-ci n’a pas la magie de ses autres romans.
https://redheadwithabrain.ch/index.ph...
https://redheadwithabrain.ch/index.ph...
April 3, 2021
A family narrative injected with both levity and rupture. Visceral descriptions of the physicality of emotions, a language of bodily sensing, of constantly pushing through pain, anguish, discomfort until it can no longer be endured. I found the contrasts between the two daughters, Angela and Marina, to be moderately interesting but not quite compelling enough to tie their respective threads to the culminating scene, where their relationships to their mother (Lin) are revealed. Overall a rich and captivating read.
June 27, 2023
I really enjoyed her writing, it was poetic without being excessive, and was very good at evoking feeling. This is a book about being an artist, and the damage that can wreak on those who are closest, and not a book about sex, but I have to say I admire authors who can write a sex scene without overt titillation, avoiding both the potentially sleazy and the unintentionally funny. The sex felt fully incorporated into the lives of the characters rather than a weird sideshow. This is what made me like the book, more than the plot, or characters, the quality of the writing.
August 15, 2023
Complètement confus dans mon esprit. Ce livre m’a égarée dans mes réflexions. Tellement de questions se sont ouvertes. Le choix de cette femme est tellement extrême, j’ai eu bcp de complexité à comprendre ce que je ressentais envers elle. Puis Rachel et Derek m’a rendue complètement perplexe, ce couple a-t-il vraiment un sens ?
Je recommande parce que la plume est très belle et l’histoire est captivante.
Je recommande parce que la plume est très belle et l’histoire est captivante.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 4, 2020
Absolutely beautiful. One of my favorite book!
August 17, 2021
This is the best possible title I could imagine for this book. Life as a slow motion disaster.
November 15, 2021
Danse , reves personnels, amour rejet filial, et surtout tristesses
January 2, 2023
beautiful writing. unapologetically realistic detailing of a woman's life. reread every year
November 15, 2023
Poignant, dérangeant, émouvant, magistral
November 15, 2024
DNF at 30 pages. Not a fan of the format, feels like I'm reading a novel in poem form. I feel like it tries way too hard to be unique.
March 9, 2025
merci maman
December 28, 2025
Une étoile pour la beauté de certaines phrases, le reste sinon est -pour moi- superficiel
November 15, 2011
This is a beautifully written book. Some of the sentences are so utterly breathtaking, I had to read them over several times before I could bare to move on. Slow Emergencies is as lean and elegant as the dancer it describes, and as heart rending as the mother it follows through her unexpected and costly life choices.
July 15, 2009
Drôle de livre...L'écriture de Huston est difficilement descriptible. Je crois que c'est la forme narrative qui est unique. Faudrait que je m'informe auprès mes littéraires afin de pousser plus loin ma réflexion. On dirait un récit naturaliste ou plusieurs dialogues style «nature morte».
May 24, 2009
J'ai beaucoup aimé ce livre sur la difficulté d'être à la fois mère et femme...
April 2, 2018
Une belle petite histoire de Nancy Huston. Très facile à lire et à apprécier. Une mère qui aime mais abandonne tout de même à cause de son besoin de danser professionnellement.
January 19, 2012
First Nancy Huston Book I ever read and made her one of my favourite writers.
I re-read it every so often.
I re-read it every so often.
Read
August 5, 2012A ballet dancer tries to manage her career, marriage, and two children at the same time. A thoughtful and passionate little novel on the dilemmas facing a woman artist.
June 25, 2013
I am obsessed with Nancy Huston's novels.
November 12, 2014
Normalement j'aime beaucoup l'univers et la plume de Nançy Huston mais là vraiment je n'ai pas du tout accroché, quelque chose m'a révulsait tout au long du roman. Seulement 1 étoile à cause de ça
July 1, 2015
This book introduced me to Nancy Houston and I became a fan.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews