Arachnide Editions
Back Roads
Written by Andrée A. Michaud • Translated by J. C. Sutcliffe
Published March 31, 2020 |
ISBN 9781487005801
FICTION / Literary

About this book
Back Roads
Andrée A. Michaud • J. C. Sutcliffe
In Scotiabank Giller Prize–longlisted author Andrée A. Michaud’s genre-defying, ethereal mystery, a writer encounters her double and must grapple with an undetermined crime — and her own identity.
In the dubious sanctuary of a wintry forest, a writer encounters a woman who she suspects may be her double. So begins a journey of inquiry in which nothing, not even the author’s own identity, is certain. Who is Heather Thorne? Is she a stranger dangerously out of place in the woods, the victim of an accident or of a crime? Who is the author? Is her own name not in fact Heather Thorne?
Brimming with the snowy menace and mystery of the boreal woods, where nothing is ever entirely known, the celebrated and prize-winning Quebec noir novelist Andrée A. Michaud once again defies categorization in an ethereal story that is also a meditation on the very process of literary creation.
About the Creators
Andrée A. Michaud
ANDRÉE A. MICHAUD is one of the most beloved and celebrated writers in the French language. She is, among numerous accolades, a two-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award and has won the Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing, the Prix Ringuet, and France’s Prix SNCF du Polar. Her novel Boundary was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and has been published in seven territories. Back Roads is Michaud’s eleventh novel and the third to be published in English. She was born in Saint-Sébastien-de-Frontenac and continues to live in the province of Quebec.
J. C. Sutcliffe
J. C. SUTCLIFFE is a translator, writer, and editor. She has written for the Globe and Mail, the Times Literary Supplement, and the National Post, among others. Her translations include Mama’s Boy and Mama’s Boy Behind Bars by David Goudreault, Document 1 by François Blais, and Worst Case, We Get Married by Sophie Bienvenu. She lives in Peterborough, Ontario.
Awards and Praise
PRAISE FOR ANDRÉE A. MICHAUD
“[Andrée A. Michaud] deserves to be better known as one of the best writers in ‘North America.’” — World Literature Today
“[Andrée A. Michaud’s] writing is lyrical and layered.” — Kirkus Reviews
“For over thirty years, Michaud has built a legion of readers enthralled by her singular brand of lit-myst hybrid fiction.” — National Post