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"Beach Blues" 1983
From: The Quebec Anthology
$1.68
"Beach Blues," translated here by Sheila Fischman, is another of the linked stories that make up Sans coeur et sans reproche, which follows the lives of two young people from childhood to maturity. In this story, the female narrator and her husband, Claude, are on holiday in California. She is "surfing towards her fortieth birthday" and not liking it: "When is it exactly," she asks, "that we see our lives distinctly cut in two, with the greater part behind us …" In many ways, Proulx’s work is reminiscent of Alice Munro’s
Lives of Girls and Women. Both writers portray characters— or rather the characters portray themselves—with grim humour and relentless honesty.
Contributors
Monique Proulx
Monique Proulx was born in Quebec City in 1952. She has written numerous radio and television plays, as well as film scripts and stage plays. In 1983, she published her first book of short stories, Sans coeur et sans reproche, the tide story of which has been translated by Sheila Fischman as "Feint of Heart." The book was an immediate success, winning both the Prix Adrienne-Choquette and the Grand Prix Littéraire du Journal de Montréal. Proulx's first novel, L'Homme invisible à la fenêtre (1993), was translated in 1994 by Matt Cohen (Invisible Man at the Window), who has also translated her most recent novel, Le Sexe des étoiles, which was also made into a successful feature film for which Proulx wrote the script.
