Charles the Bold Paperback - 2007

“One of the great works of Canadian literature.”
— Madeleine Thien

“You’re in good hands with one of Canada’s best storytellers.”
— Winnipeg Free Press

“Charles the Bold is a daring, fascinating, funny, intense, sad story. Occasionally it’s frustrating, and occasionally it’s predictable. In other words, the story is as daring, fascinating, funny, intense, sad, frustrating, and predictable as Quebec. In fact, the novel can be read as one extended metaphor about Quebec and the independence movement. . . . Another way to read this novel is as an adventure, like the adventure novels Charles reads to escape his fractured world. One character even tells him: ‘You’re like some hero in a novel!’ But this puts too narrow a scope on a novel of such depth of field and shifting focus.”
– Raymond Beauchemin, Montreal Gazette

“Charles is a kind of Oliver Twist and this is a very Dickensian story with a peculiarly Quebecois spin. . . . We’re willingly drawn along on the narrative, bouncing from episode to episode as Charles ages. The near-magical coincidences of history with the turning points in Charles’s life, together with the sentimentally charged symbols, characters and events, give this book a sparkle that counterbalances the tragedies and drudgeries Charles endures. This is a book to be read for the pleasure of it, for the characters we come to know and worry over, for the genuine suspense of all his childhood crises.”
– Michel Basilières, Toronto Star

“Beauchemin’s exceedingly readable and enchanting novel brings to life an indomitable child who survives and prospers despite his rough crossing. . . . A consummate storyteller, Beauchemin has been compared to Dickens, Rabelais and Balzac – just the captain to navigate us through the rough waters of an unforgettable character’s life.”
– Elizabeth Johnston, Globe and Mail

“Charles the Bold is a truly astonishing work. A beautifully crafted portrait of the artist as a young child, of a boy seeking shelter in a world over which he holds little power, and of a Quebec awakening to a new political reality. From the yellow dog to Fernand Fafard, this is a novel overflowing with unforgettable characters. I never wanted it to end, and when it did, I wanted to leap immediately into Wayne Grady’s luminous translation of the next volume. I only hope that Charles the Bold will claim its place as one of the great works of Canadian literature.”
– Madeleine Thein

“The book of the fall! A literary event.”
— Le Soleil

Yves Beauchemin, born in 1941 in Noranda, is a giant figure in modern Quebec. His second novel, The Alley Cat, (now in NCL) went on to become what The Canadian Encyclopedia calls "the all-time bestselling novel in Quebec literature." The French edition of this book, Charles le Temeraire, has also been a huge success . . . and the quartet continues.

From the Hardcover edition.