Overview
Why must one man perish while another survives? How does losing a sibling at birth affect life? And what are the chances that a fish lost and a cat found will bring our two protagonists together? This sweeping tale of intertwined destinies takes the reader from present-day Montreal to war-torn Italy and back again, with a gruelling march through the frozen Eastern Front of World War II along the way. All the while, secrets burn behind every pair of eyes we meet.Reviews
"Mélissa Verreault has given free rein to her fascination for Italy, history, childhood, the impossible, and humanity at its most unifying and fragile." —Marie-France Bornais, Journal de Montréal
"A vast and solid novel." —Josée Lapointe, La Presse +
"What starts like a frothy romance turns into something much more serious and substantial, and the novel has some original and stirring revelations about the human condition, and a moving depiction of redemption and reconciliation emerging out of deep suffering . . . . This is one of the most painful descriptions of war's cruelties and the suffering human beings can inflict on each other that I've ever read." —Simon Lavery, tredynasdays.co.uk
"In Aaronson's fluid translation, Behind the Eyes We Meet takes us beyond modern-day Montreal to a time, place, and perspective that lies outside many a contemporary reader's awareness." —Carly Rosalle Vandergriendt, Montreal Review of BooksAuthor Biography
Mélissa Verreault was born in 1983. She has a master's degree in translation from Université Laval in Quebec City and lives in Lévis with her Italian husband and their triplets. She has published three novels in French, all with La Peuplade: Voyage Léger (Prix France-Québec finalist, 2012), L'angoisse du poisson rouge (Prix des libraires du Québec finalist, 2015), and Les voies de la disparition (2016), as well as a collection of short stories. Behind The Eyes We Meet is the English translation of L'angoisse du poisson rouge, her first novel to be translated. Arielle Aaronson has a diploma in Translation Studies from Concordia University and an M.A. in Second Language Education from McGill University. Her first translation, 21 Days in October, was published by Baraka Books in 2013 and she co-translated, also from QC Fiction, earlier this year.