Through vignettes of a life after the academy, and seeking a life for his work outside of the academy, the narrator of Billy-Ray Belcourt’s new novel A Minor Chorus allows Belcourt to further explore themes of Indigeneity, sexuality, and intergenerational trauma. Belcourt continues to be informed by theory and literature, with regular references to Roland Barthes and Judith Butler scattered throughout this portrait of a fragmented life. Tethered to the reality of the settler colony and its legacy of colonial violence, the novel’s narrator tries to piece together an untouched history of his hometown in rural Alberta after abandoning graduate school, knowing he and his various connections are at the whim of forces he cannot control. At its core, this novel is a search for answers about what was once unanswerable: about one’s place within the academy when one’s work is inevitably reduced to diversity and equity data, about the inner workings of a queer Indigenous person, about the undercurrent of grief that fuels the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

Belcourt has previously published collections of poetry, NDN Coping Mechanisms and This Wound is a World, as well as a memoir entitled A History of My Brief Body. A Rhodes scholar and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, he has enjoyed a prestigious career in both the academic and literary world. 

Beginning in the academy, an unnamed narrator is deeply unhappy with their postgraduate studies and feels trapped by the realizations he’s had about the nature of the university. Thus begins a self-imposed exodus which sees him being drawn back to his hometown in search of his Great Canadian Novel. The narrator continues his search for the shape of his work through a series of interviews and conversations he has with various members of the community he left behind, including his family, old friends, and other acquaintances who agree to see him, all too aware of his motivations. The result is a series of interconnected glimpses into the lived experiences of the book’s characters, the narrator included. 

The interactions this book’s narrator, like phone calls with his aunt describing his cousin Jack’s arrest, or going into the lonely apartment of a local gay journalist, are frequently supported by a corresponding memory or an internal reflection, giving the novel an incredibly tangible life, giving the novel an element of introspection that is ever-present throughout Belcourt’s aforementioned work. When the narrator has a hook-up with a married man shortly after he arrives in Alberta, the sexual encounter itself is described in poetic verse, drawn out through several pages. This starkly contrasts with our narrator’s earlier reminisce on sexuality: "My body felt so thoroughly overdetermined by forces outside of me, yet it was the source of my livability, it literally coursed with life even as life was something I was being deprived of."

 The tangibility of these moments gives this story a breath of realism that would otherwise be lost in this string of vignettes. In its awareness, there’s a curiosity that maintains itself throughout this inquiry into understanding one’s lineage in relation to self, exposing each complexity beneath every rock and crook its narrator unearths in his search. The relations to his new world are as complex as each actor in this story, from his mother’s closeted grief to his own sexuality. The novel moves through a slough of meaningless hookups, wrought with the illusion of intimacy, to conversations the narrator has with his family about their shared history, supported by the intricacy of memory. I cannot emphasize enough how beautiful and soul-bearing this book was to read. To venture back into a web of connections, as tenuous and wrought with emotional connotation as they are, is to open up a side of the narrator’s life that cannot be unlearned. A Minor Chorus is incredibly intimate in its seeking, and admirable in the answers it manages to find. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read before, in how seemingly informed and intelligent this cruise into the grey truly is. The narrator is clearly well-read, a scholar of the intellectualized understanding of his life, yet it did not prepare him for what this renewed perspective brings. 

Yet, in its heavy journey, this novel is deliberate in not completely omitting its happiest moments, which is important to its overall tone as a living document, rather than the trauma porn we tend to consume rather eagerly from authors of oppressed origin. The good humour and flashes of joy make my heart sing, especially after points of tension in the novel where our narrator stands at the cross section of history and its living consequences. As our narrator drives into the reserve near his hometown, he spots a group of kids walking their dog, playing around and laughing together. To him, it illustrates a resiliency that persists in the radical acts of happiness and joy, a love for one’s self and their complexities despite. It only adds to my point of Belcourt being a master at his craft. 

With all of its moving parts, this novel’s grounding in current and historical reality gives it a jolt of realism that is frequently missed in Canadiana: it sheds light on the unmatched oppression that land ownership in its current state has inflicted upon Indigenous communities throughout what is now called Canada. Belcourt once again acts as a conduit for a life rarely seen in Canadian literature, one pockmarked with intersections of identity that act in constant conflict with itself, yet a persistence to exist, despite all thefts of agency. This novel illustrates an establishment of a tether that is so radical, so intimate in its existence, and unyielding in its fortitude. It deserves all the praise it gets.