At the core of Paul Carlucci’s debut novel is a protracted medical experiment conducted by one human on another. Set on the Canadian frontier of the 1830s and inspired by historical record, the book takes the strange case of Dr William Beaumont’s tests on Alexis St Martin’s digestive system and spins a marvellously dark yarn around them, exploring the uses and abuses of an innocent.
Alex is the innocent in question – the voyageur of the title. Our journey with him starts in raw boyhood, finding him living at the back of a Quebec harbour storehouse. His mother is dead, his beloved petit frère also. His grief-stricken father has sailed back to France, promising to return with enough earnings to start their dreamed-of peach orchard. Already years have passed, but Alex is a trusting soul – and didn’t his father warn him to be patient?
Of course we find ourselves doubtful. The father’s promise is so large, and the docks where he left his son so harsh. Can his word be trusted? But Alex finds comfort in his orchard-dreaming, and in the spirit of his infant brother watching over him – and his optimism is rewarded. When the harbour storeman threatens a beating, the boy is saved from his blows by a strong, kindly stranger, come to town by chance.
The frontier is brutal,
and so are its rules:
use or be used – or be lost
Serge is a fur-trapper. He befriends Alex, telling him tales of the frontier and the fortunes to be made there. Soon he spirits him away into a life of rough adventure.
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