In these 12 short stories, scurrying insects and luminous jellyfish reveal a predatory world of childhood fairy tales, lurking shadows, and unrelenting fevers. Individuals are swallowed up by cities and bogs in a celebration of nature and humanity, in all their terrifying glory. Throughout, Clerson draws—and blurs—the lines between man and beast, life and death, as characters strive to see out the night.
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Playfully uncanny stories on possible and impossible worlds
Finalist, Grand Prix du livre de Montréal 2019
Finalist, Prix Adrienne-Choquette 2020
Written by David Clerson
Translated by Katia Grubisic
132 pages • 978-1-77186-268-4 • 8″ x 5″
FICTION / Literary FICTION
$19.95
AVAILABLE IN ALL FORMATS
Publication Date: September 15, 2021
“As his understanding of reality changed, he thought he could glimpse the delirious landscapes of worlds to come, where he roamed, half-man, half-ape, beneath the sultry sun that set the earth and the sky ablaze.”
PRAISE FOR TO SEE OUT THE NIGHT
“David Clerson is one of the best-kept secrets in Quebec literature. Absolutely fascinating!” Les Effrontées
“Subterranean or forest worlds are as accessible and remarkable as the mundane. Being human is as potentially alien and solitary as the life and form of a mushroom . . . nimbly told and translated.” (Simon Lavery, Trednyas Days)
“Quietly yet consistently off-centre, To See Out the Night offers a charismatic collection of apocryphal tales for our times. David Clerson has a wonderful sense of weird.” (Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts)
“A+ just perfect… I loved this, it is a collection that will last long in the reader’s mind. Another gem from QC Fiction.” (Stuart John Allen, Winstondad’s blog)
“direct and simultaneously disorienting . . . (Stories that) work at gut level.” (Marcie McAuley, Buried In Print)
“Each story catches its main character at the exact moment when they go over the edge, never to recover (in this) collection of eerie short stories about what happens when humans hit their breaking points” (Eileen Gonzalez, ★★★★★, Foreword Reviews)
“These short stories by David Clerson land somewhere between Kafka, Horacio Quiroga, and Raymond Carver . . . Unusual, tragic, and funny.” (Simon Boulerice, arts columnist)
“Clerson’s strange fables lend themselves to shifts in meaning, curious associations, unusual combinations.” ★★★★ (Laurence Perron, Lettres québécoises)
“David Clerson has captured the malaise of our times.” (Josée Boileau, Journal de Montréal)
“A powerful world where the fantastic meets the organic in compelling fashion.” (Jury, Grand Prix du livre de Montréal)
“David Clerson toys with reality. Whether his characters are fleeing it, reinterpreting it, or trying to make sense of it, the unexpected paths they take cast our lives in a different light.” (Sophie Ouimet, La Presse)
“In an apocalyptic world where myth meets dystopia, these short stories conjure up a recognizable present by drawing on the fantastical and the unusual . . . At once comic and profoundly melancholic, this is probably also David Clerson’s most political book. He imagines (without requiring a huge leap of the imagination) a world that ignores its intellectuals as much as it does its misfits.” (Dominic Tardif, Le Devoir)
“A collection of short stories that reads like a thriller, tinged with horror and the uncanny. A remarkable piece of writing.” (Coop Zone Bookstore)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Clerson was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1978 and lives in Montreal. His first novel, Brothers, also translated by Katia Grubisic for QC Fiction, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation and a National Post Book of the Year.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Katia Grubisic is a writer, editor, and translator. She has published translations of works by Marie-Claire Blais, Martine Delvaux, and Stéphane Martelly. Her translation of David Clerson’s first novel, Brothers, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for translation.
OUR COMMITMENT TO DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY
✓ A talented young translator brings one of the best-kept secrets in Quebec literature into English
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