For Today I Am a Boy
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Chez les Huang, le père fait la loi. Immigrant chinois résolu à s’intégrer à la société canadienne, il est aveugle aux aspirations des membres de sa famille. Sa femme aurait bien emporté un peu de tradition à Fort Michel, en Ontario. Adele, l’aînée, cache derrière sa beauté une soif d’aventure. La sérieuse Helen peine à s’affranchir d’un idéal de performance. Bonnie, sensuelle et indocile, couve des pulsions délétères.
Dans la liste préliminaire des Prix des libraires 2021
Tandis que Peter, l’unique fils, rêve à la fille qu’il pourrait être. Ce livre raconte son parcours.
Ce ne sera pas simple, entre les cours d’école et les cuisines de restaurants où s’expriment des masculinités violentes ; entre le sadomasochisme d’une amante âgée et les fantasmes religieux d’une homosexuelle réformée. Imitant ses soeurs, dispersées aux quatre coins du monde, Peter se retrouvera seul à Montréal, et tardera à s’y faire des alliés. Heureusement, il y aura toujours Audrey Hepburn dans «Sabrina».
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's a marker of how quickly things change that a novel detailing the thoughts, hopes, and fears of a boy who wishes he would have been born a girl feels like it covers familiar terrain. But even if some of the markers of Peter Huang's trouble with his body the experimentation with his sister's makeup, for instance, or the fascination with women's self-presentation are things we've seen before, debut author Fu's sharp eye and the book's specificity of place (the Huangs live in small-town Canada, where Peter's father does whatever it takes to fit in and the rest of his family lies to him) provide freshness. Peter grows up; watches his favorite sister go off to college; connives with Bonnie, the sister nearest to him in age (he cooks the meals she's supposed to be making, while she learns to "wear heels" and "not look twelve"); gets a restaurant job; and plots his escape to Montreal, the city of possibility. Once there, he tries to find a way to have intimate relationships, and eventually, painfully, comes to see that he doesn't have to be the thing he never was. Although the focus is always Peter, Fu is adept at depicting the shifting alliances between him and his sisters, and at revealing how being an outsider shapes Peter's expectations and options, which adds another layer to the story.
