Read an extract from Paul Carlucci’s debut historical fiction, ‘The Voyageur’

Having previously written three collections of stories, Canadian author Paul Carlucci is gearing up for the release of his debut novel, The Voyageur, which will be released on 18 April.

The story centres around Alex, a motherless stockboy in 1830s Montreal, waiting desperately for his father to return from France. Serge, a drunken fur trader, promises food and safety in return for friendship, but an expedition into the forest quickly goes awry.

At the mercy of men whose motives are unclear, Alex must learn to find his own way in a world where taking advantage of others has become second nature. Floundering, hopelessly vulnerable, Alex feels his luck begin to change when he falls into the path of the brilliant Dr Beaumont, who appears to offer the fatherly protection Alex so passionately seeks. But as the months pass, Alex suspects that the good Doctor’s motives are not all they seem. Will Alex have to abandon his humanity to survive?

Alive with unexpected twists, The Voyageur is a masterclass in storytelling, a bold, gripping exploration of the blurred lines between endurance and moral compromise. In a world where kindness is costly, the real wilderness may not be in the landscape surrounding Alex, but in the deceptive hearts of men.

Irish novelist John Banville has praised the title, saying: “The Voyageur is a marvellous work of art, brutal, tender and deeply moving. It has many of the qualities of Cormac McCarthy at his ferocious best, without the excesses of the late American master. The narrative is set in history, but the novel triumphantly surpasses the constrictions of a genre label.”

Read on for an extract from the novel…

The whispering had started a few days before, but that morning, as the men clambered up the stony beach and blackflies besieged them, they spoke of him openly, and with anger. Serge had come down with consumption. He’d slept with dogs in the streets of Montréal and now the brigade would have to leave him behind before his condition spread, if it hadn’t already, and tant pis, because the man was a dreamer and a sodomite and he was too old besides.

They’d left Lachine six weeks previous, about twenty men and an Algonquin woman who made their food and patched their boats and suffered their lechery. They brought their French into the wilderness and imagined it might cling to the rocks in the rivers and wash up on the banks as well. Their red toques were tattered, their sashes torn, and their canoes heavy with kegs of rum and barrels of gunpowder and many dozens of crates full of smaller items to trade for fur at Fort William. They carried as well a collection of axes and fiddles and blankets and rope. They’d already paddled four hours that morning and it was eight o’clock when they stopped for breakfast on the cliff-enclosed banks of the Rivière des Français.

There were rumours about Serge. He’d gained his spot on the brigade after beating an officer of the Hudson’s Bay Company in poker, which seemed a plausible story because he’d brought two unsullied blankets with company stripes as well as several bottles of premium rum and he quietly refused to portage the heavy boats and the lighter ones too.

He was slowing them down. They should’ve been at the fort by now, guzzling rum by the keg, but Serge carried only a dozen 4 pounds of supplies at a time and never once did André l’avant take him to task for even the most outrageous lethargy or fatigue, and so upsetting was this double standard that soon there were angry rumours about André as well: he’d entered into a secret agreement with the company’s senior officers, des angluches to the rotten last; he’d disavowed his Canadien heritage and would become a clerk once they returned to Montréal; he wasn’t a leader at all, just another special case like Serge, and like Serge he’d bring them to a broken end.

Their third source of discontent was the boy. They were all sick of this boy, whose name was Alex. He’d come along with Serge like the older man’s blistering cough and he’d been sullen and reluctant at La Pointe au Baptême, where all men new to the trade were soaked in the waters that flowed lazily past an enduring stone church, and since then he’d bothered them more and more. He was skinny and feeble and fragile, and they laughed at the little tufts of boyish beard that grew like windswept shrubs on his bony cheeks. They gave him only the worst servings of salt pork, pieces so tough and chewy he had to swallow them whole. They called him cul crevé right to his face and among themselves they agreed it was partly the boy’s fault they’d let Serge’s sickness settle so close, because the two had been sleeping together in a deerskin tent, not under les canots with the rest of the men, and so for a time it was easy to ignore Serge’s wretched hacking, until gradually the situation became clear and they could abide mortal danger no longer.

It was the first day of June and the heat was rising despite the persisting rain and they longed for the cool of early May, when in some places there was still ice on the shores and snow in the forest. The men lit their pipes and handed out pemmican and Serge slung a deerskin bag over his shoulder and motioned for Alex to follow as he lumbered down the beach. They had affairs to discuss. The sand gave way quickly to stone and behind them was a forest of ragged pine and across the water a large cliff, the summit of which was bathed in a lone shaft of yellow sun. They found a spot with a wide view of the dark and glassy water, and Serge unfolded a bearskin and spread it over a rounded slab of grey rock. A loon hollered from mid-river and the forest behind 5 them seemed somehow ill. Serge took from his bag a flask of rum and passed it to Alex, who drank and passed it back.

‘Tu vois,’ said Serge in his mumbled French, ‘they won’t let us travel with them anymore.’ He issued a wet, snapping cough and a curl of red foam shot over his lips and clung to his beard before he wiped it away.

Alex looked from Serge’s damp and shiny eyes to the wilderness surrounding the men and their canoes. What would they do out here? How close were they to Fort William? Days away, maybe more, ample time to die on the banks of the river or in the forests that crept away from either side.

Serge put his arm around Alex’s shoulder and gave his tiny frame a squeeze. ‘T’inquiète pas, Ali. First, we smoke my pipe. Then I’ll challenge André to a fight and win some supplies, don’t doubt it. I only need a few days’ rest, and after that we can make our own canoe and continue to the nearest post. We’re not far from Fort William now.’

‘The Voyageur’ by Paul Carlucci will be published by Swift Press on Thursday 18 April