The Lake
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
The latest from Governor General’s Literary Award winner Perrine Leblanc is a mesmerizing story about the disappearance of three young women and a deeply disturbing portrait of a small town gone bad.
In between the mountains and the sea, on the north shore of the Baie des Chaleurs, there’s a village called Malabourg. The village is surrounded by all the usual features of the region: a river with wild salmon, a stretch of the national highway, and a coniferous forest. But Malabourg has one unusual feature: in the heart of the forest there’s a lake the kids call “the tomb.” It’s the place where three young women have disappeared, one by one. As rumours and allegations spread through the village, Alexis and Mina struggle to make sense of the tragedies before deciding the only way to forget is to leave. Alexis relocates to France to learn how to compose perfume and Mina moves hundreds of kilometres away from the sea. But, in spite of the distance, Alexis and Mina can’t forget Malabourg, or each other.
Unfolding along the beautiful, rugged landscape of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, The Lake is the gripping story of the disappearance of three young women, the unsettling aftermath, and the search for life beyond the limits of a small town.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This slim novel, which deftly blends murder, mystery, romance, and a coming-of-age story, is a testament to the talent of the author. Alexis and Mina are both misfits living in the Acadian village of Malabourg, Quebec, where three young women are murdered in one year, their bodies fished out of the village's icy lake. For Alexis, the murders have meant the death of a love that might have been: he was in love with Genevi ve, the first woman murdered. For Mina, a young woman who knows too much but can't speak out, the murders become a terrible secret, difficult to bear. Both must leave Malabourg before reckoning with all that happened. Leblanc's debut novel, L'homme blanc, won the 2011 Canadian Governor General's Award for French-language fiction. Her second is equally ambitious, with shifting points of view and spare, poetic prose. This style is occasionally problematic for the plot, leaving some unanswered questions that can be distracting for the reader, but ultimately, it is from the work's sparseness that the novel draws its beauty.
