The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou shows an alternate Detroit — read an excerpt now
Heather O'Neill will champion The Future on Canada Reads 2024
The Future is set in an alternate history of Detroit where the French never surrendered the city to the U.S. Its residents deal with poverty, pollution and a legacy of racism. When Gloria, a woman looking for answers about her missing granddaughters, arrives in the city, she finds a kingdom of orphaned and abandoned children who have created their own society.
The Future will be championed by writer Heather O'Neill on Canada Reads 2024.
The Canada Reads debates will take place on March 4-7. This year, we are looking for one book to carry us forward.
They will be hosted by Ali Hassan and will be broadcast on CBC Radio One, CBC TV, CBC Gem and on CBC Books.
You can read an excerpt from The Future below.
After an endless wait, a drawn-looking sergeant comes over to greet her. Straight off, he announces there are no new leads in the investigation into her daughter's murder. He pronounces the word investigation hesitantly, as though the term doesn't exactly fit the work the police carried out after Judith's death.
"I'm here about my granddaughters," replies Gloria. "I want to know where the investigation is at into their disappearance."
The sergeant looks at her for a moment, of two minds. Then he leaves the room and returns with two skinny folders that he lays down silently. "No new leads there either."
"Could I see the files?"
"They're confidential."
Gloria would stake her life on the sergeant having brought out two empty file folders, just to make himself look good, and on no investigation having ever been launched into the girls' disappearance. And on the fact that they've either been forgotten, like Solomon's little gatherers, or simply ignored.
"They've been missing since the day their mother died," she nevertheless insists. "No one I've talked to has seen them. Can you really not tell me anything?"
The officer picks up the thicker file on Gloria's daughter and studies it more closely. Then his index finger drops onto the blue ink of a sentence.
"One thing. They're the ones who called for help. That means they were the first on the crime scene."
Gloria opens her mouth. She has to remember to breathe.
"When the officers arrived, the house was empty. Except, of course, for the victim."
Tears streak Gloria's cheeks. The mention of her granddaughters, alive and devastated, is shattering.
The mention of her granddaughters, alive and devastated, is shattering.- Catherine Leroux
"If you like, you could try to track down the recording of their call. The emergency call centre is located at this address."
Gloria takes the card he holds out, as agitated as she is incredulous at such negligence. As though reading her thoughts, the sergeant resumes. "Listen, send me a picture, I'll circulate it among our fellows on the beat."
Gloria gives a curt nod and gets to her feet. She knows now that she will not be sending this man a picture and will never expect anything more from this place. On her way out, she finds herself face to face with a raven carrying something resembling a smooth stone in its beak. At the sight of her, it throws its head back, swallows, and flies off. Gloria could swear it has just ingested the philosopher's stone. She imagines tracking down the bird and killing it. She'd slit open its belly and clutch the warm stone in her hand. Then time would fold back in on itself, and the stone would return the missing to life.
* * *
Gloria hasn't yet ventured into downtown Fort Détroit. The idea of deserted monuments and empty buildings bothers her. But the address the sergeant gave her is to one of the rare office towers that is still occupied.
It wasn't easy to organize the trip. The main bus line serving Chesnay, Gloria's district, has been suspended for the past five months. Cab companies went bankrupt a long time ago, and it would take hours to walk to the emergency call centre. Eventually, it was Olivar, Francelin's cousin, who came to her rescue. He's the owner of a converted electric car he often uses to shuttle people to and from downtown. In exchange for a few kilograms of scrap metal from the dryer lying dormant in the basement of the yellow house, he agrees to drive Gloria.
In exchange for a few kilograms of scrap metal from the dryer lying dormant in the basement of the yellow house, he agrees to drive Gloria.- Catherine Leroux
The trip takes close to three-quarters of an hour. Rain pours down, and the sewers have overflowed in several places, necessitating detours. Francelin is in the front passenger seat; after their rounds, he'll get off at the Shling hall where his talents and tools are needed to secure the stage that collapsed when an attempt was made to set speakers on it. Beside him, Olivar steers his car as though it were a space shuttle travelling along the belt of a black hole, tacking between crevices, potholes, and roadwork abandoned partway through. He's forever exclaiming, "What on earth is that? What've they gone and done here?" He stops twice, first to pick up an old man who sighs impatiently every time they slow down, then a young androgynous person whose ears are hidden by the headphones of an old Walkman. The whine of notes falls like seeds from a hole in a bag.
"What's that you're listenin' to?" Francelin shouts.
"Bouzouki," is the teen's only muttered response.
"You should drop by the Shling later. Gypsy guitar like you've never heard before!"
"Have they started giving shows again?" asks Gloria.
"No, it's just background music while we work. No amps."
Soon the skyscrapers appear, windowless for the most part. The upper floors are surrounded by flocks of crows and smaller, pointier birds. Olivar drops the two other passengers off in front of a government building and pulls out again, grousing, "How can this be? Really!" Next, he comes to a stop in front of an elegant art deco building. As Gloria shuts the door, the structure's facade vibrates with the thrum of hundreds of pigeon wings. She looks again at the business card the officer gave her.
The elevator no longer works. Fortunately, the offices she's looking for are on the fifth, not the thirtieth, floor of the Godley Building. Patiently, Gloria climbs the stairs. On the steps, cigarette butts and bread crumbs speak of parallel lives, as frail as a body's last breath, that coexist with the lives of the staff still onsite.
On the steps, cigarette butts and bread crumbs speak of parallel lives, as frail as a body's last breath, that coexist with the lives of the staff still onsite.- Catherine Leroux
The emergency call centre buzzes with a muffled ringing. The operators work in a closed room, but it's as though the calls for help well up from within the walls themselves. Gloria is greeted by a gravel-voiced receptionist. The skin of her face is so loose and wizened it looks like she's wearing a mask.
"I've come to listen to the recording of a call."
The woman hands her a form. Once Gloria has filled it out, the receptionist takes it back and disappears into another room, dragging her heels. It's hard to imagine her capable of managing five flights of stairs every day. Gloria envisages a small alcove fitted out between the warm bellies of the two photocopying machines, a filing cabinet-cum-bedside table, and a bed laid out on boxes of white bond paper. And a woman growing old between the walls of a building's gradual abandonment.
She returns with an ancient tape recorder and headphones. Gloria sits in a doorless cubicle furnished with one straight-backed chair. Her hand trembling, she hits play. —Hello? The timbre of her granddaughter's voice shakes every fibre in her being. —Yes, I'm listening, answers an older woman's voice. —It's our mother. She's drowning. —Where are you? —At home. Forty-five Clyde. —You say she's drowning? In a pool? —No. I think she's dead. I don't know what to do. —I'll send a team over. Meanwhile, I'll walk you through the steps to resuscitate her. Where is she right now?
There's a click then a blast of white noise. Gloria startles at the clatter signalling the end of the recording. Looking up, she gives another start at the receptionist's penetrating stare.
"Tissues to your left," the woman says, and her voice grates like metal.
Excerpted from The Future by Catherine Leroux (Trans. Susan Ouriou) (Biblioasis, September 5th, 2023).
