Fiction
Granby au passé simple
by Akim Gagnon
In Granby, Past Tense, we find Akim, his brother and his Pop in the modest mobile home in Granby where he grew up. In this incredibly tender novel and behind Akim’s trashy bravado, we discover ordinary small town misery: unemployment, the father’s solitude and depression, cloyingly close quarter and hygiene that’s thrown out the window, adolescent ineptitude, and the resulting tensions… The Gagnons’ house is full of cracks— both literally and figuratively. Faced with this excruciating spectacle, young Akim seeks refuge in movies, theatre classes and especially the lens of his camera, through which he attempts to remix reality to better tell its story, if not escape it. At once trashy, tender and hilarious, Granby, Past Tense casts a sad yet empathetic eye on depression and anxiety, father-son relationships and poverty.
