The latest addition to my website is Christophe Bernard‘s La Bête Creuse [The Hollow Beast]. This is a very long, very funny novel, written in broad Quebecois dialect, about a family that may have a curse on them though, as we soon learn, it is possible that the curse is merely excessive consumption of alcohol. It starts in 1911 with Monti Bouge brilliantly saving (with his teeth) the puck in a key ice hockey game but he is pushed into the goal and the goal is awarded. He vows revenge on the referee, Victor Bradley. Many years later he again meets Bradley, now a postman, and goes out of his way to make his life miserable (delivering heavy items to his remote cabin). Monti eventually heads off to find gold in the Yukon. He does find money but not the conventional way and returns home rich. Meanwhile, we are also following his grandson François, alcoholic, drop-out and chronicler of his family, determined to show there is a curse. He too has his adventures. It is hilarious fun, with kidnapping, unreliable narrators, mad taxi drivers, dodgy poker games, odd beasts, and lots and lots of alcohol.