Sing, Nightingale

December 19, 2022
Poitras (Griffintown) delivers a gloomy and lyrical fairy tale set in and around Noirax, a fictional French village. Shortly after the widowed master of the Malmaison estate, referred to almost exclusively as “the father,” receives an offer from a young woman named Aliénor to revive his farm’s dwindling fortunes, his melancholy son returns home, fleeing a failed marriage. By the time Aliénor arrives—“She throws back the father’s glass of chartreuse, salutes her hosts, and sits at the head of the table, facing the boar’s head, in the patriarch’s seat”—it’s clear she has an ominous agenda, which Poitras reveals alongside Malmaison’s dark history. Generations of women have come to bad ends here, and the author bewitches the reader with her folkloric narration of their stories and Aliénor’s retribution. Though some of the prose is a bit overripe, most of Poitras’s linguistic flights land just right. References to blood, mother’s milk and other bodily fluids abound, and numerous traditional French children’s songs “both innocent and cruel” punctuate the brimming narrative. This is a feast for lovers of gothic lit.

January 6, 2023
The Malmaison estate is struggling under the current father, but there's good news: his son, Jeanty, is coming home, and a hired hand named Ali�nor is on her way to help breed new livestock and make their farm prosperous once again. But Ali�nor has her own plans, and between her and the deep, grungy secrets already buried in the very dirt of the estate, Malmaison is bound to an unfortunate destiny. Poitras has crafted a dark gothic reminiscent of Angela Carter--lush with decadent food and fruits, packed with sex and sensuality, taking on fear, desire, and patriarchy through a poetic and mildly chaotic narrative voice. Some readers might struggle with the dips and twists of the language, and Poitras loses some of her direction near the end, rushing towards a neater narrative than is truly satisfying for such a complex tale. But the wildness of the prose, the sheer strangeness that Poitras achieves in the tone and setting, is itself very exciting--the inventiveness solidifies Poitras as a fantasy writer to watch. Fans of dark, fairy-talelike worlds will enjoy Sing, Nightingale tremendously.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.