The Hollow Beast - (Biblioasis International Translation) by Christophe Bernard (Paperback)

About the Book

"Don Quixote meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit in this slapstick epic about destiny, family demons, and revenge. In 1911, in a hockey game in Quebec's Gaspâe Peninsula, local tough guy Billy Joe Pictou fires the puck into Monti Bouge's mouth. When Monti collapses with his head across the goal line, Victor Bradley, erstwhile referee and local mailman, rules that the goal counts. Monti's ensuing revenge for this injustice sprawls over three generations, one hundred years and dozens of alcohol-soaked tall tales, from treachery in northern gold-mining camps to the appearance of a legendary beast by turns playful and ferocious. It's up to Monti's grandson, Franðcois, to make sense of the vendetta between Monti and Bradley that has shaped the destiny of their town and everyone who lives there. In a sumptuous, unpredictable language and slapstick comedy, Christophe Bernard reveals himself as a master of epic storytelling"--

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2025 French-American Translation Prize in Fiction - Finalist for the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award in Translation - A Globe and Mail Most Anticipated Spring Title

Don Quixote meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit in this slapstick epic about destiny, family demons, and revenge.

1911. A hockey game in Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula. With the score tied two-two in overtime, local tough guy Billy Joe Pictou fires the puck directly into Monti Bouge's mouth. When Pictou's momentum carries them both across the goal line in a spray of shattered teeth, Victor Bradley, erstwhile referee and local mailman, rules that the goal counts--and Monti's ensuing revenge for this injustice sprawls across three generations, one hundred years, and dozens of dastardly deeds. Fuelled by a bottomless supply of Yukon, the high-proof hooch that may or may not cause the hallucinatory sightings of a technicolor beast that haunts not just Monti but his descendants, it's up to Monti's grandson François--and his floundering doctoral dissertation--to make sense of the vendetta that's shaped the destiny of their town and everyone in it. Brilliantly translated into slapstick English by Lazer Lederhendler, The Hollow Beast introduces Christophe Bernard as a master of epic comedy.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Hollow Beast

"[A] big, high octane novel . . . Thomas Pynchon meets Rabelais and Don Quixote meets Who Framed Roger Rabbit are two of several crossbreed critical comparisons the book has inspired."
--Globe and Mail

"With synapses popping and sparking and sometimes shooting out, the scepticism and disillusionment heard through Bernard's words, though darkly amusing in places, underpins serious themes. This pop-culture stream-of-consciousness writing has some distasteful scenes (accurately portrayed), some lucidly penetrable, and some suffering word insanity, but overall displays the originality expected of great art."
--Fiona Alison, Historical Novel Society

"Bernard weaves a multicoloured, shimmering tapestry of the Gaspé . . . The many threads aren't necessarily gathered into a neatly finished selvage by the time the reader gets to the end of the book, but the journey they have been taken on is so immersive, so grounded in a place and the characters that inhabit it, that it hardly matters."
--Cassandra Drudi, Quill and Quire (starred review)

"It's ambitious . . . [The reader] can tap into the author's manic rhythm and admire the density of the world he creates . . . his technical mastery has generated all kinds of complex flavours, so long as one can stomach the initial shock of the taste."
--Amanda Perry, Literary Review of Canada

"Christophe Bernard reveals himself as a master of epic storytelling."
--CBC Books

"The Hollow Beast is a sprawling story of generational feuds and old hostilities that refuse to die . . . the novel also unfurls like a knowing parody of such epics, blending hallucinatory moments and possibly nonexistent cryptids with a decades-spanning narrative."
--Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders

"While The Hollow Beast itself is a beast of a novel, despite its hefty page count it moves along at a leisurely clip, as though the reader is hearing the tall tale around the table at the local pub or late at night in the kitchen during a house party, with the lilt and cadence of an eloquent and well-soused Francophone, peppered throughout with allusions to Quebec history, Metallica's Kill 'Em All and the Montreal Canadiens, among others."
--Sheldon Birnie, Winnipeg Free Press

"Leave[s] a mark on the broader landscape of CanLit. The author travelled far and wide before diving into novel writing, and absorbed important lessons from modern literary greats, channelling his experiences and influences into a singular voice."
--Open Book

"It's a long story that's alternately funny and bittersweet, and sometimes feels like a hall of mirrors. But even at its trickiest, The Hollow Beast is a compelling read . . . Bernard is a heck of a storyteller."
--Roz Milner, The Ex-Puritan

"From rural Quebec, a sprawling, antic, alcohol-soaked family saga centered on a feud with the postman . . . full of slapstick and fresh, lively language and outlandishness . . . it's rollicking, inventive fun."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Mixing family history with local lore, the satirical novel The Hollow Beast is a tale of revenge and hauntings."
--Isabella Zhou, Foreword Reviews

"Bernard's hilarious tome is a hundred-proof fever dream of bizarre scenarios and Canada's most outlandish cast of characters . . . But readers beware. Your technicolor nightmares will be fueled by The Hollow Beast."
--Eric Smith, Manhattan Book Review

"A master of epic storytelling, The Hollow Beast is an inherently fascinating saga of a read from start to finish."
--Midwest Book Review

"Quebecois writer Bernard debuts with a feverish burlesque about a one-time hockey player's decades-long dispute with a referee and his grandson's attempts to reverse the family curse . . . Bernard's bawdiness and mania credibly evoke Thomas Pynchon's flights of invention."
--Publishers Weekly

"A controversial goal at a 1911 hockey game in the Gaspé Peninsula leads to a family vendetta that spans more than three generations and 100 years, shaping the destinies of a small town and its inhabitants. With The Hollow Beast, translator Lazer Lederhendler brings Quebec author Christophe Bernard's 2018 Governor General's Literary Award-shortlisted novel to English readers."
--Cassandra Drudi, Quill and Quire

"Christophe Bernard has hollowed out the past like a beast and, like an alchemist, has excavated a language of pure gold. He has added a great, savage nugget to Quebec literature."
--La Presse (Montreal)

"Christophe Bernard scores a huge hit with The Hollow Beast . . . He gives birth to a sort of crazed novel in the form of a fireworks show . . . Bernard slips into the patchwork skin of a kind of Thomas Pynchon crossbred with Rabelais and Victory-Lévy Beaulieu (with a pint of James Joyce) . . . His writing is flamboyant with vernacular flights. An example of utter mastery."
--Le Devoir (Montreal)

"The reader swims in sheer delirium reading The Hollow Beast, a novel from the Gaspé that takes place over several generations. Passionate and unsettling . . . A universe plugged in at 10,000 volts!"
--Radio Canada

"A tale with plenty of momentum that covers a whole century and is at once fantastic, funny, cruel, brilliant."
--Le Journal de Montréal

"A family saga unlike any other . . . And it's funny! I envy this writer's talent."
--L'Actualité (Montreal)

About the Author

Originally from Carleton-sur-Mer in the Gaspé region of Quebec, Christophe Bernard studied literature in Quebec City, Aix-en-Provence and Berlin. A prolific literary translator, Bernard was a finalist for the 2016 Governor General's Literary Award for English-to-French Translation. The Hollow Beast, a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in French, won the Quebec-Ontario Prize, the Quebec Booksellers' Prize and the Jovette-Bernier Prize. Christophe Bernard lives in Burlington, Vermont.

Lazer Lederhendler is a full-time literary translator specializing in Québécois fiction and non-fiction. His translations have earned awards and distinctions in Canada, the UK, and the US. He has translated the works of noted authors, including Gaétan Soucy, Nicolas Dickner, Edem Awumey, Perrine Leblanc, and Catherine Leroux. He lives in Montreal with the visual artist Pierrette Bouchard.