Listening for Jupiter

Landry’s (L’équation du temps) inventive novel is his first to be translated into English. It’s told in two voices, with Stratford and Aaronson each translating one character. Xavier is a globe-trotting pharmaceutical sales rep; Hollywood is a student who lives with his parents and works at a graveyard. The two men, both lonely and unfulfilled despite networks of slightly odd friendships, start to meet in their dreams in what seems to be a chance to face their existential struggles. The novel is a fantastical and partly fragmentary blend of science fiction (Hollywood has had his heart removed in an attempt to stop his weariness and gloom), climate change fiction (Montreal has an endless summer while Europe and parts of North America deal with inordinate amounts of snow), and surreal dream writing (sometimes hard to distinguish from the men’s waking lives). The reason the universe has brought them together is unclear, but their encounters give them both the impetus to move forward, even if the way is never as straightforward as they would like. This adventurous, improbable novel, which leaves readers wondering whether the two characters are, in fact, two different destinies of the same person, is an intelligent take on a hybrid of literary and genre writing. (June)