A Friday in August

Overview

Written in a baroque, multilayered style tinted with both lyricism and humor, this is the story of Fabrizio Notte, a filmmaker who makes documentaries on hit men. Invited to show his latest piece at a film festival in his home town of Montréal, he receives mixed reviews and begins to question himself. The trip serves as a pretext for an existential pilgrimage towards love and belonging, ultimately leading him back through time, through the vast, moving landscape that is memory, to his first love and ultimately, to himself.

Reviews

"What to say about this fragmented novel, obviously written under the influence of jubilation? A novel whose inspiration seem blacker than pink? It does not bore you one second, not even when it overflows with dreamlike moments; it does not read like those stories that have been so cleaned up that amuse a moment but are quickly forgotten. With his furor to invent life, the author never fools you with tricks, nor does he succumb to facile artifices. One is tempted to say that he doesn't even take himself for an author at all. And this is rare, and excellent." —Réginald Martel, La Presse

Author Biography

Antonio D'Alfonso is a poet, essayist, independent filmmaker, and the founder of Guernica Editions. He has published several collections of poetry, including Comment ça se passe and is a Trillium Award winner. He lives in Toronto, Ontario. Jo-Anne Elder was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award in 2003 for her translation of Tales from Dog Island.