CANR
WORK TITLE: AUTOPSY OF A BORING WIFE
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 2/21/1974
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CITY:
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COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY: Canadian
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born February 21, 1974, in Limoilou, Quebec, Canada.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Maisonneuve College, Montreal, Canada, instructor.
AWARDS:Battle of the Books winner, ICI Radio-Canada, and Archambault Prize, both for Mister Roger and Me.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Marie-Renee Lavoie is a Canadian writer and educator. She has served as an instructor at Maisonneuve College in Montreal.
Lavoie’s first novel is Mister Roger and Me. In this volume, she tells the story of a young girl named Hélène, whose hero is a comic book character called Lady Oscar. Lady Oscar dresses as a man in order to serve as a palace guard for Marie Antoinette. Similarly, Hélène tries out identifying as a male herself and insists on being called Joe. Claiming to be ten when she is really eight, she obtains a paper route and begins making her own money. Meanwhile, a rough older man named Mr. Roger begins renting out Hélène’s neighbors’ basement. Mr. Roger is amused by Hélène’s moxie and ultimately saves her from a potentially dangerous event.
Kendra Paré, critic on the Link website, remarked: “If there was more depth and meaning to it all it might have worked, unfortunately, the message was lost in translation.” In a more favorable review of the volume on the Montreal Review of Books website, Heather Leighton commented: “Lavoie has beautifully captured those bright, shiny pre-teen years before the sordid side of human nature makes its unfortunate appearance.” Leighton added: “Funny and touching, Mister Roger and Me will remind readers of a time not so long ago when they were far more trusting of their neighbours.”
Autopsy of a Boring Wife focuses on a middle-aged woman named Diane Delaunais, whose husband, Jacques, has recently left her. Diane has a difficult time sorting out her life and finding meaning in the dissolution of her marriage. She leans on her best friend, Claudine, who has experienced the same thing, as well as her three children. Diane alternately acts out, makes impulsive decisions, and eventually broaden her horizons, allowing new people into her life.
Cora Siré, contributor to the Montreal Review of Books Online, suggested: “There’s much to praise in Autopsy of a Boring Wife. The characters are vivid and entertaining, especially Diane and her reckless feistiness. Her emotional trajectory saves the novel from being just another post-break-up tragedy. The scenes and dialogue can be laugh-out-loud funny, and the narrative hums along smoothly.” “Autopsy of a Boring Wife is slapstick, funny and absurd, but underlined with a tenderness and poignance that will have you rooting for happily ever after after that,” asserted a writer on the Pickle Me This website. Nancy Wigston, reviewer on the Toronto Star Online, remarked: “Lavoie’s fiercely hilarious take on the pains and triumphs of marital abandonment feels perfectly right.” A Kirkus Reviews critic described the volume as “a readable, recognizable, tragicomic account of coping with domestic disaster.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Winchester, Simon, Their Noble Lordships: Class and Power in Modern Britain, Random House (New York, NY), 1982.
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2019, review of Autopsy of a Boring Wife.
Toronto Life, March, 2019, “A Quebecois Bridget Jones’s Diary,” review of Autopsy of a Boring Wife, p. 94.
ONLINE
Link, https://thelinknewspaper.ca/ (September 27, 2012), Kendra Paré, review of Mister Roger and Me.
Montreal Review of Books Online, http://mtlreviewofbooks.ca/ (September 22, 2012), Heather Leighton, review of Mister Roger and Me; (March 22, 2019), Cora Siré, review of Autopsy of a Boring Wife.
Pickle Me This, http://picklemethis.com/ (March 6, 2019), review of Autopsy of a Boring Wife.
Toronto Star Online, https://www.thestar.com/ (March 15, 2019), Nancy Wigston, review of Autopsy of a Boring Wife.
MARIE-RENÉE LAVOIE was born in 1974 in Limoilou, near Quebec City. She is the author of three novels, including Mister Roger and Me, which won ICI Radio-Canada’s “Battle of the Books” — the Quebec equivalent of “Canada Reads” — and the Archambault Prize. She lives in Montreal, where she teaches literature at Maisonneuve College.
QUOTED: "a readable, recognizable, tragicomic account of coping with domestic disaster."
Lavoie, Marie-Renee: AUTOPSY OF A BORING WIFE
Kirkus Reviews. (July 1, 2019):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lavoie, Marie-Renee AUTOPSY OF A BORING WIFE Arachnide/House of Anansi Press (Adult Fiction) $17.95 9, 3 ISBN: 978-1-4870-0461-3
A middle-aged woman's life comes undone with the revelation that her marriage is over.
As boring wives go, Diane Delaunais is not so much. A woman with a taste for stylish boots, she is also not shy about confronting those who upset her, from a finicky neighbor to a busybody secretary spreading lies. Nevertheless, 48-year-old Diane is a familiar figure--the long-serving partner who, after 25 years of marriage and three children, suddenly finds herself replaced by a younger model. Now, with her husband Jacques' revelation that her solid life was in fact built on foolish assumptions, she's taking a more sardonic view of marriage vows. Maybe they should be rewritten: "I solemnly swear to love you, blah blah blah, until I stop loving you. Or until I fall for someone else." Quebec novelist Lavoie (Mister Roger and Me, 2010) brings a bracing, comic edge to this well-worn storyline but doesn't avoid the predictabilities of the genre. Propped up by a therapist, her children, and her BFF Claudine (another abandoned wife), Diane goes through a recognizable range of emotions--numbness, grief, anger, acceptance. She buys new running gear and gets drunk a few times. She has a flirtation with an attractive work colleague, takes a crowbar to the furniture, adopts a three-legged cat, and makes some surprising new acquaintances. Among the ups and downs and comic set pieces, Diane must mark the major milestones of a forsaken woman's life: reassessing the past and making the best of the future. Lavoie keeps her novel short, offering chaotic humor and snappy observation to balance the pain and loss. Diane will emerge from her crisis, spirited, open-hearted, and among friends. She will survive.
A readable, recognizable, tragicomic account of coping with domestic disaster.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lavoie, Marie-Renee: AUTOPSY OF A BORING WIFE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2019. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A591279234/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c7e5a0bd. Accessed 16 July 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A591279234
5 A Quebecois Bridget Jones's Diary
Toronto Life. 53.3 (Mar. 2019): p94.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Toronto Life Publishing Co. Ltd.
http://www.torontolife.com/
Full Text:
BOOKS
Autopsy of a Boring Wife BY MARIE-RENEE LAVOIE, TRANSLATED BY ARIELLE AARONSON HOUSE OF ANANSI
March 12
Marie-Renee Lavoie's latest novel tells the story of Diane Detaunais, a 48-year-old woman whose husband leaves her for someone else because, he claims, she's boring. But he's wrong. Diane is spontaneous and witty, and now she's going to prove it to everyone. With great humour and tenderness, Lavoie recounts Diane's journey to regain trust in both herself and the people around her. Despite its premise, Autopsy of a Boring Wife isn't a book about abandonment; it's a piercing commentary on gender, marriage and the nuances of self-love.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"5 A Quebecois Bridget Jones's Diary." Toronto Life, Mar. 2019, p. 94. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A579092683/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=6fbea12a. Accessed 16 July 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A579092683
QUOTED: "Lavoie’s fiercely hilarious take on the pains and triumphs of marital abandonment feels perfectly right."
Marie-Renée Lavoie is ‘Boring’ her way to the truth
By Nancy WigstonSpecial to the Star
Fri., March 15, 2019timer2 min. read
When Diane Delaunais’ husband of 25 years announces he loves someone else — a blonde, 30-year-old “someone else” — her life careens off track. He’s long been bored, it seems. Her fault, obviously: “I was born boring.”
Boring no more. Diane embarks on a rollicking “body and soul” autopsy of life and marriage. Whether we’re laughing or crying during her attempts to get fit or her sessions with a shrink — we like this woman tremendously, as does just about everyone else — her friends, her quirky neighbours, the tattooed construction guy working down the road.
The strange, and strangely human thing is — even as we see her husband’s flaws in sharp focus — she clings to her image of him as Jacques-the-prince. Worse, she feels shame about being dumped, which happily impedes neither her volcanic approach to redecorating nor her domestic revenge skills.
It’s not just Diane, of course. A brief glance around unveils a marital battlefield strewn with the fallen, for instance her best friend and staunch ally, Claudine, ditched for a student who’s read “all of Heidegger.” Perfect. As are the laughs at Claudine’s nasty old dad’s funeral, when women seize the chance to shout the truth about the deceased.
As the youngest sister praises her old dad, “a miniscule old woman” stands and shouts “HE DIDN’T WANT YOU!” pointing dramatically at the deceased’s coffin. Death is a great time to settle old scores, observes Diane, noting the widow’s barely-contained laughter as the truth spills forth.
Most enchanting, perhaps, are Diane’s new blue boots. They come and they go, these boots, footwear from a fairy tale. After she gives them away to her office crush (for his wife), they magically reappear, stuffed with bottles of wine. Stained after a roadside bladder emergency, they’re tossed into a ditch.
Stocking-footed, she limps to an isolated cabin, where a mysterious nonagenarian gives her advice, soup, and new slippers. “It had been ages since a gift had touched me this much.”
Our Cinderella-in-reverse, shod in handknit slippers that don’t quite fit, at last follows her bumpy road home, finding solace in, well, being Diane. Lavoie’s fiercely hilarious take on the pains and triumphs of marital abandonment feels perfectly right.
As Diane’s saga clearly shows us, we don’t need a prince to make us happy; life can be sunnier on the independent side of the street.
Nancy Wigston is a freelance writer in Toronto
QUOTED: "Autopsy of a Boring Wife is slapstick, funny and absurd, but underlined with a tenderness and poignance that will have you rooting for happily ever after after that."
March 6, 2019
Autopsy of a Boring Wife and The Matchmaker’s List
It’s been over two years since Marissa Stapley and I sat down to talk about the state of Canadian commercial fiction, and while I’m not sure the genre has yet received the respect that is its due, I’m glad to see there have been changes on some fronts. When I asked Stapley what could be done to promote diversity in commercial fiction and challenge its glaring whiteness, she dared to be optimistic, saying, “There’s room for all the stories. The tent is getting bigger and bigger. It’s exciting.” And here in 2019 there is demonstrable evidence that this is true, not least of all commercial and critical success by writers such as S.K. Ali (who writes YA) and Uzma Jalaluddin, whose Ayesha at Last had its film rights scooped up last year. Finally, commercial fiction lovers are getting the chance to read great books from a diverse range of perspectives—including two titles I’ve loved lately.
Autopsy of a Boring Wife, translated from French by Arielle Aaronson, is by award-winning Quebec writer Marie-Renee Lavoie, the story of a woman whose husband has left her for another (younger) woman, because she’s boring, Diane supposes. Because she can’t even dance: “I was born boring. The gene in question slipped into the double helix of my DNA during conception.” But Diane, of course, is anything but boring, and the narrative follows her through the painful aftermath of her husband’s confession, their separation, and her attempts to reorient herself in this brand new life, which she takes on with aplomb via a sledgehammer to severals walls in her home and antique furniture. She follows her best friend Claudine’s mad schemes to get on the rebound, makes confessions to her therapist, attempts to make a move on a coworker and ends up with losing her boots (this is not a euphemism), gets delicious revenge on her husband’s girlfriend, hides in the pantry while the realtor shows her house, and does her best not to take it all out of her children. And Diane’s incredible love for her adult children is what grounds her, and what grounds this novel that’s full of quirks and zaniness, as Diane talks about how parenthood is a combination of visceral fear and a kind of gratitude.
The novel is written in the first person, mostly dialogue and little exposition, and the reader has to read between the lines to get a real understanding of the extent of Diane’s pain and suffering, sledgehammer aside. (She’s pretty blasé about the sledgehammer. Her neighbours are certainly concerned.) Autopsy of a Boring Wife is slapstick, funny and absurd, but underlined with a tenderness and poignance that will have you rooting for happily ever after after that.
Happily ever after is also the object of Sonya Lalli’s first novel, The Matchmaker’s List, although Raina and her grandmother have different ideas about what that entails. She’s just about to turn 30, which is the age she’d promised Nani (years ago, when 30 seemed an eternity away) that she’d be married, and though she’s still pining for a man who broke her heart and more devoted to her job in downtown Toronto as an investment banker than to finding a new relationship, she agrees to go on dates with a list of eligible men that Nani has selected for her. Which sounds like set-up enough for mix-ups and mishaps, because some of the men are ridiculous, and Raina never holds back on letting them know what she thinks of them, but Lalli throws another wrench in the works when Raina’s Nani incorrectly infers that Raina is gay, which rocks their Hindu-Canadian community and creates even more trouble for Raina. It’s possible the novel is a bit too packed—Raina’s old boyfriend shows up in town; her best friend is getting married and Raina has feelings for a groomsman; Raina’s wayward mother (who had Raina as a teenager, which makes Nani all the more determined to marry her granddaughter off properly) drifts in and out of Raina’s life; and a family friend who actually is gay struggles with whether or not to let his parents in on his secret. But Lalli’s writing is smart and funny, and her characters are refreshingly flawed and multi-faceted, which made reading this novel about family and friendship absolutely a delight.
QUOTED: "There’s much to praise in Autopsy of a Boring Wife. The characters are vivid and entertaining, especially Diane and her reckless feistiness. Her emotional trajectory saves the novel from being just another post-break-up tragedy. The scenes and dialogue can be laugh-out-loud funny, and the narrative hums along smoothly."
Fast & Furious
Review by Cora Siré • Published in the Spring 2019 issue • Leave a comment
W
hat’s the meanest thing someone can say about you? “You’re boring” ranks right up there among the top ten insults. But there’s a big difference between being a boring person and having a boring life.
Diane Delaunais, the main character in Marie-Renée Lavoie’s novel Autopsy of a Boring Wife, is (despite the title) not at all boring. After Jacques, her husband of twenty-five years, unexpectedly leaves her and their empty nest near Quebec City for a younger woman, Diane’s equilibrium (if she ever had any) spirals out of orbit. Trying to regain her footing, she lurches from scene to scene in escapades often featuring her sympathetic friend Claudine.
Autopsy of a Boring Wife
Marie-Renée Lavoie
Translated by Arielle Aaronson
House of Anansi Press
$22.95
paper
280pp
9781487004613
The story zips along in chapters with snappy headings that foreshadow the coming action. A personal favourite, “In which Claudine tries unsuccessfully to help me,” degenerates as Diane talks through what went wrong in her marriage to Jacques, a man she still considers faultless. When Claudine reminds her that “he called you boring to your face!” Diane thinks, “I used to believe that if we say them often enough, words become worn and faded, little slivers of soap that slip between your fingers – but I was wrong. They had taken on a terrible destructive force, covering me like a slick of oil. Boring. It sliced through me like a dagger.” Later she meets her daughter Charlotte and they wind up shopping for skinny jeans. In the fitting-room mirror, Diane beholds her body “in all its disgrace […] Every part of me saidboring.” She crumples to the floor. Charlotte crawls under the door and, without saying a word, takes her mother into her arms. It is a touching scene, the two women embracing. Diane recognizes her daughter “had dived alongside me into the quicksand, demanding nothing. It made me want to dig in my heels.”
Diane does dig in her heels, in surprising ways that keep the plot moving as fast and furious as her state of mind. She sees a therapist, tries flirting with a colleague, and hires a private investigator who dredges up Jacques’s past and gives her a thick envelope of evidence that suggests the ex-husband may not be so faultless after all. Eventually, Diane starts taking control of her life, and that is the redemptive message of the novel.
Sometimes, the action veers into slapstick. Diane doesn’t overthink, she just acts – emptying a pitcher of ice water on her ex’s new lover. Egged on by Claudine, the two conspire and the result is sometimes ludicrous, undermining Diane’s real anger and emotions expressed elsewhere in the novel.
There’s a big difference between being a boring person and having a boring life.
There’s much to praise in Autopsy of a Boring Wife. The characters are vivid and entertaining, especially Diane and her reckless feistiness. Her emotional trajectory saves the novel from being just another post-break-up tragedy. The scenes and dialogue can be laugh-out-loud funny, and the narrative hums along smoothly, facilitated by the fine translation from French by Arielle Aaronson.
While intelligently written, this is not a deeply intellectual book. Diane is smart, sassy, and she can make you laugh, but she’s conventional. At the risk of overthinking things, Diane might have shown a little more awareness of the privilege inherent in her middle-class life. Yet there’s truth to Diane’s occasional nuggets of insight. After another turbulent episode, she concludes, “That’s the good thing about being boring: the most insignificant little thing becomes a gripping adventure.” mRb
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Cora Siré is the author of three books. Her latest novel, Behold Things Beautiful, was a finalist for QWF’s Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction in 2017.
QUOTED: "If there was more depth and meaning to it all it might have worked, unfortunately the message was lost in translation."
Lost in Translation
English Version of “Mister Roger and Me” Hurts Readability
Fringe Arts by Kendra Paré — Published September 27, 2012 | Comment
Mister Roger and Me by Marie-Renée Lavoie. Translated by Wayne Grady
Mister Roger and Me
by Marie-Renée Lavoie
House of Anansi Press Inc.
Marie-Renée’s coming-of-age novel, Mister Roger and Me (not to be confused with Mr. Rogers), is a wonderfully descriptive narrative set in ’80s working-class Montreal.
The main character is an eight-year-old tomboy (slightly reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird’s Scout) named Helen. She bikes around the neighborhood developing unlikely friendships with adults and rarely children. Her friendship with Mister Roger is the driving relationship in the story, along with her wacky parents and two sisters.
Helen wishes she were a boy, and is often confused for one, especially using her alias name, Joe. As a reader, I wish that desire to be a boy was developed further. Why does she want to be a boy so badly? So she can go on adventures and not have to be in the kitchen all day? This is supposed to be the ’80s, not the ’50s.
The story seemed underdeveloped. I couldn’t seem to find what the real meaning was. The novel was written in French originally, and then translated by Wayne Grady. A lot of sentences are run-ons are confusing and non-sensible in English, but were probably great in French.
Jumpy, hard to follow and at a mere 228 pages, difficult to get through to the end. There are some great descriptions of typical Quebec life-a memorable one being Helen’s father’s excitement and screaming during a Habs game which caused the police show up at the door, only to then joined him for the rest of the game.
I believe I understand what Lavoie was going for with Mister Roger and Me – a coming of age tale and a grumpy old man being won over by a spunky kid. But everyone has seen or read that before. If there was more depth and meaning to it all it might have worked, unfortunately the message was lost in translation.
QUOTED: "Lavoie has beautifully captured those bright, shiny pre-teen years before the sordid side of human nature makes its unfortunate appearance."
"Funny and touching, Mister Roger and Me will remind readers of a time not so long ago when they were far more trusting of their neighbours."
Mister Roger and Me
Review by Heather Leighton • Published in the Fall 2012 issue • Leave a comment
F
or children, cartoon characters not only offer entertainment, but also provide a vision, however skewed, of the outside world. These cartoon heroes often serve as early role models, as in the endearing story of Mister Roger and Me, the translation of Marie-Renée Lavoie’s award-winning debut novel. Set in the early 1980s, the story follows Hélène through her seemingly endless pre-teen years. The eight-year-old decides she wants to be called Joe because she assumes that life as a boy is better. It isn’t because she is the second of four daughters, but because Hélène is enthralled with the cartoon heroine Lady Oscar, a military captain in Marie Antoinette’s palace guards who conceals her female identity behind a heavy coat laden with medals and military insignia. For Hélène, Lady Oscar epitomizes courage, strength, and adventure.
Although our young protagonist tries to emulate Lady Oscar, her surroundings offer little in the way of a romantic, windswept setting. Her working-class neighbourhood is populated with psychiatric outpatients, welfare recipients, and her obese neighbours, the Simards. However, to Hélène, her surroundings are merely humble, not grim, and, inspired by Lady Oscar, she strikes out to find adventure in her tiny world. But instead of fighting for justice during the French Revolution, Hélène lies about her age and says that she’s 10 to get a paper route, and then takes on a second. At the same time, a new boarder moves into the Simards’ basement, a man by the name of Mr. Roger.
Mister Roger and Me
Marie-Renée Lavoie
Translated by Wayne Grady
House of Anansi Press
$22.95
paper
233pp
978-1-77089-202-6
The new neighbour whiles away his days drinking beer in a wornout armchair, and, much to the chagrin of Hélène’s mother, swears like a sailor. But beneath his rough exterior lurks a kind heart, and the ailing senior dispenses wise advice to Hélène, in addition to serving as the neighbourhood source for home remedies. A father of three grown children, Mr. Roger watches over Hélène and saves her from a fate that would have left lasting scars even on Lady Oscar.
Lavoie has beautifully captured those bright, shiny pre-teen years before the sordid side of human nature makes its unfortunate appearance. The use of Lady Oscar as a narrative device successfully brings the reader back to that tender age when performing an honourable deed was worth every last joule of energy. The first person narrative limits the reader to the world as seen through the eyes of a young girl. Unfortunately, whether due to the author or the translation, there are a number of passages with long-winded, heavy sentences that warranted a second read, thereby interrupting the flow of the story.
Originally published in French under the title La Petite et le vieux, Mister Roger and Me is a risky translation, as many will shy away from a story about a relationship between an
older man and a young girl. But the odd pairing of characters works in this book; Hélène and Mr. Roger complement each other. The outgoing innocent child needs Mr. Roger’s guidance, and Hélène’s optimism offers Mr. Roger some hope in the final years of his life. Funny and touching, Mister Roger and Me will remind readers of a time not so long ago when they were far more trusting of their neighbours. mRb
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