Mercury Under My Tongue: A Novel

by Sylvain Trudel, Sheila Fischman (Translator)

Overview

Frederick Langlois could be that geeky 17-year-old found in every high school — the one who closely clutches his poem-filled notebook, who feels a bit too deeply, who’s just a little too old for his years. But Frederick isn’t in high school. He’s in a hospital ward with other critically ill adolescents, dying of bone cancer. Mercury Under the Tongue chronicles his short stay there, from his distant but friendly relationship with his therapist through comic moments in the ward and his emergent friendships with other teenage patients. Some survive, others are lost, and at the end, Frederick must make a final reckoning with himself and his family, one that is at once dispassionate and deeply felt. Avoiding both misty stoicism and made-for-TV bathos, the book exposes the fallible body as the humanizing factor that grounds spirited adolescent talk, creating a believable, likable protagonist while weaving a compelling, lyrical story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933368962
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	01/28/2008
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Sylvain Trudel is a Quebecois writer born in Montreal in 1963. After studying science and cinema, he has devoted himself to writing full-time since 1985. He is the author of six novels for adults and has also written numerous books for children and young adults.

Editorial Reviews

Sylvain Trudel's acid novel Mercury Under My Tongue, tartly translated from the French by Sheila Fischman, is a tale told by a 16-year-old named Frederic Langlois who is dying of bone cancer in a Montreal hospital. By turns terrified and embittered, Frederic pours forth his thoughts on what he conceives of as his physical, moral and spiritual degeneration with an articulateness that belies his age. Fortunately, unlike the precocious child narrators that populate so much fiction, there isn't a whiff of gee-whiz wonderment or innocence about him. He's thoroughly disillusioned…Nevertheless, he is a captivating narrator, reminiscent of the speakers in Thomas Bernhard's work, who also talk a blue streak of self-loathing.
—The New York Times

Tayt Harlin

Québécois novelist Trudel convincingly conjures the bitterly sad imagination of a 17-year-old boy dying of hip-bone sarcoma. Lying in a Canadian hospital near the Missiquoi Bay, Frédéric has "a kind of dark faith" in himself. Bored and often in terrible pain in his "bachelor pad," he tools around the corridors in his wheelchair with other young patients and has faith in what he knows, which is that he is neither good nor bad, and that his soul will die with him. He fantasizes about his well-meaning but ineffectual psychotherapist, Maryse Bouthillier. With a 15-year-old leukemia patient he meets, Marilou Desjardins, he writes poetry and imagines sharing love, marriage and children. In his heart, Frédéric is furious at his bad luck and angry at such visitors as the Abbé Guillemette, who lectures about belief and sin when Frédéric cannot see any use for hope or penance, perversely signing his poetry after an 18th-century Italian poet, Metastasio. Frédéric refuses to entertain self-pity, and his voice is immediate, winning and utterly believable until the end. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Adult/High School -Frederick Langlois is a 17-year-old philosopher in the tradition of a young Thomas Wolfe or Jack Kerouac. In wordy, raw, sometimes aggressive prose, he mourns the insincerity of the adult world, his own isolation, the apathetic wastefulness of his father's life, and a powerful disconnection from the Catholic Church. At the same time, Frederick's precise understanding and intense warmth intensify his connection to those who surround him. Moments with his mother, grandmother, siblings, and friends pulse with gratitude and tenderness. Frederick describes his relationship with one friend: "we quickly became buddies who understand each other in secret, like the uvula and the epiglottis." He is complex, passionate, loquacious, and thoughtful. He is also in a hospital ward, dying of bone cancer. Though it would be tempting, given this setting and context, to create a pitiable or overtly angelic protagonist, Trudel does an excellent job of avoiding either option. Instead, he creates a well-formed, likable, yet flawed character: a bright, confused, and frightened teenager grappling with existence. Life in the hospital ward, aside from its inherent philosophical musings, is extreme, equally full of heartbreak and dark humor. Frederick and his intensive-care compatriots create mock tumors, raid the hospital's chapel, and have "last words" competitions. This is an affecting, well-conceived story, and its style and themes are sure to strike a chord with readers.-Shannon Peterson, Kitsap Regional Library, WA

Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal