Tales of Terror, Torment, and... Charm?

The Torrent [Le torrent]
Anne Hébert [trans Gwendolyn Moore]
Montreal: Harvest House, 1973
141 pages

Anne Hébert completed Le torrent in 1945, but it didn't reach bookstores until five years later. No Quebec publisher would touch the work, which explains how it is that the first edition was printed privately. A slim collection of five short stories, it was considered too dark, too disturbing and, according to the author, too violent. That's the story anyway. The truth is much more complicated, as detailed in Marie-Andrée Lamontagne's brilliant, exhaustive biography Anne Hébert, vivre pour écrire. (Montreal: Boréal, 2019).

When Le torrent was reissued in 1963, the Quiet Revolution was well underway, which may explain why Éditions Hurtubise took it on, adding two stories. The Torrent was released ten years after that as the fifth title in the all-too-brief Harvest House French Writers of Canada series.

 

Remarkably, Le torrent, was the first Anne Hébert title to be translated. By the time The Torrent was published, she her bibliography consisted of Les songes en equilibre (1942), Le torrent (1950), Le tombeau des rois (1953), Poèmes (1960), and Kamouraska (1970), her masterpiece.

Growing up in Montreal, the 1973 film adaptation of Kamouraska was everywhere.

As a result, I knew Anne Hébert's name at age ten, though another eight years passed before I read anything she'd written. My introduction was 'The House on the Esplanade' ('La maison de l'Esplanade'), the fifth of the seven stories in The Torrent.

The titular house belongs to elderly spinster Stéphanie de Bichette, "a curious little creature [...] with limbs that were poorly formed, and too thin." It dates from the time of New France: "You  know them, those narrow houses with their steep roofs and their rows of gabled windows, the upper ones about as large as a swallows nest." Stéphanie de Bichette lives there with her chambermaid Géraldine, occupying no more than one or two rooms on each floor. The other rooms – there are many – have been gradually been closed off. The two belonging to her younger brothers, who'd both died of scarlet fever when Mlle de Bichette was ten, were the first. Her mother died shortly thereafter. Irénée, the older brother was killed in a hunting accident, and so his room was shut off. Once sister Desneiges entered the Ursuline convent, her room was also sealed. And then there's Charles... Charles was disowned for marrying a girl from the Lower Town. His former room is treated like all the others. When Géraldine enters to clean, she makes certain to place each item in the very same place as when the room was vacated. The chambermaid looks to the day she will be able to do the same with her mistress's room.

I've reviewed two other French Writers of Canada books over the years: The Temple on the River (Les Écœurants) by Jacques Hébert and Bitter-Bread (La Scouine) by Albert Laberge. Both were dark, but not nearly so dark as The Torrent, which has me wondering about its peculiar back cover copy: 

The titular story does indeed "strike with devastating impact." François, the narrator, grows up on a small remote farm, cut off from the rest of the world. It begins:  

As a child, I was dispossessed of the world. By decree of a will higher than my own, I had to renounce all passion in this life. I related to the world by fragments, only at those points which were immediately and strictly necessary , and which were removed from me as soon as their usefulness had ended.

François knows only his mother, a threatening figure. He dares not look at her face; it is unlikely that he would recognize her on the street.

But there is no street. The boy's early years are spent on the farm, and the farm alone. There is such a sense of foreboding in the early pages that nothing is spoiled in revealing that the story features child abuse, animal abuse,  nd almost certainly murder.

Returning to the cover copy, this sentence stands out: "The background of course [emphasis mine], is a small Quebec community with its morally repressive environment."

In fact, The story features no Quebec community of any size. The morally repressive environment is the sole creation of the boy's mother, who keeps a ledger detailing "the wages of sin."

What strikes even more is this: "Included under the title The Torrent, are a group of stories that are charming, except for 'The Torrent' itself..."

There is not one charming story in The Torrent.

'Springtime for Catherine' is set in wartime. A population is forced to flee, discarding the elderly, infirm, and pregnant to fend for themselves in the face of the approaching enemy. Catherine, a servant girl, is awkward and unattractive, but is able to keep up. Endless years of toil with little sleep have prepared her for such a challenge. She is a "foundling," a "dirty little beast," a "Child of Sin;" Catherine is her name, but she's referred to as "The Flea." 

Having taken refuge in a barn, one night the girl is discovered by a drunken soldier. His clumsy hands undress her and for "one spark of time" she is a princess, she feels loved. In the light of the early dawn, she considers the youth and beauty of the sleeping soldier. How much ridicule might he receive for having slept with her? He would soon awaken and discover his mistake: "He must never know that he had made love to the Flea, the servant girl death's head, the joke and scorn of everyone."

And so, Catherine plunges a knife into his throat.

Have I spoiled 'Springtime for Catherine?' Trust me, there's so much more to the story. My intention was to show the absurdity of the cover copy. Were it not for the fact that the same text continues to be used to sell copies today, I wouldn't have bothered.

Besides, I haven't even touched upon 'A Grand Marriage' ('Un grand mariage') which is Anne Hébert's very best short story.

Wish I'd found it at eighteen.

Object: A mass market paperback printed on paper that is far superior to that typically used in that format, fifty-three years later there's not a hint of yellowing. The cover design is by Robert Reid. The cover illustration is by Gilberte Christin de Cardaillac. I purchased my copy this past autumn at the Merrickville Book Emporium. Price: $2.00.

Access: Though Harvest House is long out-of-business, copies are available through the University of Ottawa Press at $14.95 (plus shipping).

Le torrent is currently available from Bibliothèque Québécoise. Two editions are available. I recommend the most recent, published just last year, for its inclusion of an introduction by Natalie Watteyne. Priced at $10.95, you can purchase it by way of Jeff Bezos, but wouldn't you rather going directly to the publisher? Here's the link.

Related post:

A Father's Love on Father's Day

Old Novels and the Women Who Owned Them

Last year, I participated in CrowdsourceHerBook: Women's book history and participatory science – an experiment. Overseen by Charlotte Epple, a PhD fellow at the University of Southern Denmark, it ran from March to December and involved sourcing images of "women-owned books printed before 1900 in private ownership."  

It was an enjoyable experience. My only regret was that I learned of the project too late to have contributed more than a few titles before it came to an end.

On the other hand, I didn't have much to offer. Canadian books dominate my library, the vast majority dating from the twentieth-century. Few of the two hundred or so titles printed before 1900 bear signatures or other identifying marks of former owners. More often than not, those that do appear to have been owned by men – but there are exceptions. My favourite is the first I submitted.

I've written about Margaret Murray Robertson's Christie Redfern's Troubles in the pages of Canadian Notes & Queries, and have spoken about the author and her novel since. First published in 1866, my copy likely dates from about 1892.

What had intrigued for so long was its bookplate:

Encouraged by the project, I found far more about young Katie Seymour than expected. You can read about it through this link.

I was nowhere near so successful in tracking down Lulu Bird – presuming that was her actual name – who on Valentine's Day, 1900 received this first edition of Frank Norris's 1899 novel Blix.  Of all the inscriptions in my library, this is by far my favourite.

Ownership of this copy of The Bastonnais, John Lesperance's 1877 historical novel set during the 1775 and 1776 invasions of Canada, proved every bit as challenging. 

I like to think that I narrowed the field, but "Lizzie Beaty" wasn't much to go on.

You can read of my failure here. 

On this International Women's Day I can't help but think of these women. The books they once owned are now in my hands. I've read the words they read, and on the very same pages.

I also think of Jennie Jones, "a scholar in the Methodist Sunday School." In 1898, the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church presented her with a copy of W.H. Withrow's The King's Messenger; or, Lawrence Temple's Probation "as an acknowledgement of the diligence and fidelity in collection Funds for the Missionary Society."

Jennie Jones' copy of The King's Messenger would've been my next CrowdsourceHerBook submission. 

The seed has been planted. I must know more!

Related posts:

Let the Margaret Murray Robertson Revival Begin!
Margaret Murray Robertson Matrimonial Mystery
(and Canadian literature's most tear-stained novel)

The Colony of Unrequited Nightmares

Portrait in Fear [Mystery of Cedar Valley]
Vera Henry
New York: Caravelle, 1964
160 pages

I expected little of Portrait in Fear, the lone novel from an author whose bibliography consists almost entirely of confessionals published in post-war love pulps.

Ideal Love (December 1946) and Glamorous Love (July 1954)

She had me from the opening:

Even after all this time, the townspeople of Cedar Valley view our small summer art colony with suspicion. They tolerate us for business reasons, but they do not like us.

The narrator, children's book illustrator Maggie Balfour, is the colony's longest resident. She's also the youngest. Her parents first brought her as a child. She was fifteen the summer Steve Wentworth moved into the cottage next door. He was writing his first novel. Steve was a young man. Maggie was a girl with a crush. There was nothing untoward about their relationship. As the years passed, the two became good friends and in the off-season would visit other art colony residents in "the city." They all expected the pair to one day move on from being just friends, and so were surprised when Steve all of a sudden married another. Maggie had only herself to blame for introducing the two. Riona, Steve's bride, was an old schoolmate.

Now it's the newlyweds' first summer at the colony. Maggie is determined to put on a good front, and for the most part succeeds. Not so the colony's other women. Retired stage actress Connie Ordway is right in suspecting that husband Brown has been having an affair with Riona. Gwen Darlan is not only certain that her spouse would leave her for Riona, she would gladly give him up. It's not that she doesn't love her husband, rather that she wants him to be happy. Where the reader recognizes a selfish, directionless child of a man, wife Gwen sees a genius deserving of so beautiful a woman. Sadly for Ted, Riona sees him as a plaything, little more than a sardine entangled by a fishing line.

Riona fits the femme fatale stereotype, right down to her dark hair, pale blue eyes, pale white skin, rocking body, and provocative dress. In a tight-knit community with so much resentment, jealousy, and hatred directed toward one person, you just know that something bad is going to happen. The front cover tells you as much.

Here I'm going to change focus, as I often do when writing about mysteries. I never want to wade in too far for fear of spoiling things. Let's look instead at this Caravelle Books edition, beginning with the cover copy:

• Riona is not "pretty." Maggie, who has every reason to find fault, describes her as the most beautiful woman she has ever seen.
• Riona has great sense of right and wrong. Manipulative and cruel, she's no "lost pussy cat."
• "They" do indeed have a reason to kill Riona, and of course one of them does.

I've spoiled nothing in revealing that Riona is murdered, right? 

Now, the back cover:

The artists' colony is hardly "swinging," though it is true that its men are keen on sleeping with Riona, husband Steve included. 

There is a whopper of an error in the second paragraph:

When Marie Balfour, Steve's ex-fiance, questioned Riona about the odd gold brooch she wore, Maggie didn't know it then but it was a pin that would unlock the mystery of Riona's death.

I'm glad I didn't see this until after I'd read the novel, otherwise I'd've kept an eye out for Marie, the jilted lover. The copywriter means Maggie, not non-existent Marie. Not only are Maggie and Steve never engaged, they never exchange so much as a kiss.

Returning briefly to the novel itself, much of the mystery has to do with painter Paul Petrie. Unlike Maggie, he was not raised in the arts colony, but on the outskirts. He grew up within the "Evangelical Brethern [sic]," a small religious sect that had settled Cedar Valley after "fleeing from the temptations of the mid-Victorian world." Paul was very much a black sheep, painting from an early age in a religious community that considers lipstick garish.

After years of condemnation and rejection, Paul Petrie disappeared at the very point his talent began to be celebrated. If anything, his recognition caused further bad feelings within Cedar Valley's predominantly Evangelical Brethern locals. Young Paul would've given them his paintings for free, now they hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.

Marie Balfour never appears, but does Paul?

I'm not telling, though I will say that the surprise ending Caravelle promises did indeed smack me right between the eyes.

About Cedar Valley: The author gives few clues as to the location of the community, but careful reading suggests that it is on Lake Ontario somewhere between Toronto and Hamilton.

About the author: Vera Henry (née Bates) began life in Forest, Ontario. According to the 1911 Canadian census he was born in July 1909, likely the last of seven children born to 37-year-old William, a livery stable laborer, and 40-year-old Margaret. The family doesn't appear in the 1921 census.

The University of Oregon Libraries, which holds Vera Henry's papers – all "0.5 feet" – reports that the author graduated high school at age fourteen. She may have been living in Michigan at this point. I have nothing to go on other than the proximity to Forest and Vera Henry's association with the state.

The most informative profile I've found, 'You May Be in One of Her Stories,' was published in the 8 May 1954 edition of the Detroit Free Press. This was on the occasion of the Detroit Women Writers honouring Vera Henry as Writer of the Year.

There's so much to explore, like distaste expressed for her cash cow:

This suggests a lost work:

And here's something to keep in mind if I ever write a second edition of Character Parts:

Vera Henry died in Royal Oak, Michigan on 4 October 1987.

About Forest: A community of fewer than three thousand souls located five kilometres east of the southern shores of Lake Huron, Forest has had more than its fair share of notable residents. Emily Murphy lived there for a time, as did journalist Robyn Doolittle. Like any Canadian small town, it has produced at least a couple of NHL players, but the name that stood out to me is Emm Gryner. For ten years, our paths crossed as residents of nearby St Marys, Ontario. Here's Emm onstage with David Bowie:

Object and Access: A mass market paperback, my copy was purchased online earlier this month from a Guelph bookseller. Price: US$3.50.

Evidence suggests that in 1967 there was a second Caravelle edition. As I write, seven copies of the two Caravelles – 1964 and 1967 – are listed online. Prices begin at US$5.00.

The novel was first published in 1964 by New York's Avalon Books as Mystery of Cedar Valley. Worse title, better cover:

Might it also be a better novel?

I ask because Caravelle's Portrait in Fear features several remarkable errors, this being the worst:

One copy of Mystery of Cedar Valley – ex-library – is listed online. It's in pretty rotten condition, but does include the dust jacket (chopped up and pasted on the boards here and there). Price: US$50.00.

I recommend both.