A Minor Chorus
A Novel
by Billy-Ray Belcourt
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Pub Date Oct 04 2022 | Archive Date Sep 30 2022
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Description
A debut novel from a rising literary star that brings the modern queer and Indigenous experience into sharp relief.
In Northern Alberta, a queer Indigenous doctoral student steps away from his dissertation to write a novel. He is adrift, caught between his childhood on the reservation and this new life of the urban intelligentsia. Billy-Ray Belcourt’s unnamed narrator chronicles a series of encounters: a heart-to-heart with fellow doctoral student River over the mounting pressure placed on marginalized scholars; a meeting with Michael, a closeted adult from his hometown whose vulnerability and loneliness punctuate the realities of queer life on the fringe. Amid these conversations, the narrator is haunted by memories of Jack, a cousin caught in the cycle of police violence, drugs, and survival. Jack’s life parallels the narrator’s own; the possibilities of escape and imprisonment are left to chance with colonialism stacking the odds.
A Minor Chorus introduces the dazzling literary voice of a Lambda Literary Award winner and Canadian #1 national best-selling poet to the United States, shining much-needed light on the realities of Indigenous survival.
About the Author: Billy-Ray Belcourt is a writer from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia and the author of three books of poetry and nonfiction.
Advance Praise
"Billy-Ray Belcourt's A Minor Chorus is a rare gem of a book. Taking philosophy, theory, poetry and personal histories, it uses the sheer heat of Belcourt's mind and beauty of his language to put pressure on colonial constructs until they are utterly transformed. The literary child of Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, this novel builds on both, and is yet still something so new. It has the guts to centre Indigenous queer life as worthy of serious intellectual and artistic inquiry--which, of course, it always has been. We will be reading and re-reading and learning from A Minor Chorus for decades to come." - Alicia Elliott, author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
"An absolutely dazzling confluence of big ideas and raw emotions, told in Billy-Ray Belcourt's singular poetic voice. A Minor Chorus is about loving, questioning, and fighting for your life, and it's as compelling a debut novel as I've read in years." - Jami Attenberg, author of I Came All This Way to Meet You
"No one breaks your heart as elegantly as Billy-Ray Belcourt. Innovative, intimate, and meticulous, A Minor Chorus is a thoughtful riot of intersections and juxtapositions, a congregation of keenly observed laments gently vivisecting the small, Northern Alberta community at its core." - Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster
"A truly exceptional novel about how the disregarded sometimes live the most remarkable lives, and how storytelling will redeem us somehow, make us less lonely. A Minor Chorus is like a song that’s over too soon; I want to play it on repeat, to memorize the words so that I can sing them to myself." - Katherena Vermette, author of The Strangers
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781324021421 |
| PRICE | $15.95 (USD) |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Carolyn L, Reviewer
I've never read a story quite like this. Billy-Ray Belcourt has combined raw emotions and progressive ideas to create a compelling narrative that left me feeling both challenged and inspired. Driven more by character than by plot, A Minor Chorus is a modern articulation of love, longing, and the ever-changing human condition.
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