The Last Bullet Is for You

This story begins when the Quebecoise narrator meets a Czech man in Rome. During their intense love affair, he moves to Montreal to be with her and they marry. But his love for his new wife is quickly overtaken by hatred for the city, the country, and the continent. The narrator's apartment becomes, she thinks, symbolic of a historic battleground, representing the new world while her lover believes in the superiority of ancient civilizations. Once he has left, ostensibly for a trial separation, the narrator returns to Rome, writing one last love letter before they part forever. Like Delvaux's 2015 novel, the as-yet-untranslated Blanc dehors, this one focuses both on a relationship and its absence. Told episodically and not chronologically, the story intersperses the narrator's suffering in Rome with memories of the couple's time together. But these aren't exclusively romantic, myopic visions of the past; the departed lover is gradually revealed to be cruel and bullying. Delvaux is merciless and unsentimental in describing the intoxication of love and the despair of its aftermath. This is an angry, often devastated, but eloquent postmortem of a complicated relationship, bound to be deeply appreciated by many who have suffered broken hearts. (Sept.)